Las Vegas, NV
Today is the most exciting day in all of poker. I know what you're thinking. But Pauly, what about the final table of the Main Event? Ummm... not really. That's an important historical moment but it's by far not as exhilarating as the Bubble.
Even the ever melancholy and navel-gazing Otis will tell you, "I love the Bubble is my favorite part of the World Series."
789 players showed up for Day 4 and 141 players will go home utterly disappointed. Today will be the most depressing day of the year (and maybe in their entire life) for those unfortunate 141 players who do not cash. I have razor blades and a Death Cab for Cutie CD waiting for you if you choose to end your existence upon your elimination. Just come up to the press box to pick up your gift bag.
12:05pm... Day 4 Begins
Cards went in the air at 12:05pm after they announced the Dealer of the Year winner... Dennis.
After a quick scan of the room, here's some table draws of note...
Joe Sebok and Ludovic Lacay are at the same table. LDP and JC Tran are also at the same table. Elky has CK Hua at his table, and I've played with both. The Big Randy has David Levi at his table. Fabrice and Thor Hansen are at the same table.Table 69 had the first "All in and a call!"
Blue 50 is interesting... Richard Toth (Hungarian high stales cash game player), Peter Eastgate, Bob Feduniak, Joe Hachem, Surinder Sunar, and Burt Boutin.
1:05pm... Ivey Quads, Big Randy Out, and Elky Still Runs Good
Chip Leaders: ELKY and Ludovic Lacay
Recent Eliminations: The Big Randy, J.C. Alvarado, FBT, Maridu
Players Remaining: 709
The DonkeyBomber dragged a pot when his Aces held up, sadly the other member of Team Pokerati, The Big Randy, is busto. My hopes of representing a November Nine players was flushed down the toilet.
Phil Ivey is sitting up on the featured TV table. He's got quite a following in the stands who erupted early on when he nailed quads.
The secondary table is Blue 50 which is includes two former champions... Joe Hachem and Peter Eastgate.
Everyone's favorite spicy Brazilian dish. Maridu gave me a hug when she saw me. She was pissed off at her shitty performance at the TV table on Day 2. She battled on Day 3 and ended up with a decent stack by the end of the night. However, she busted out on one of the first hands of Day 4.
According to F-Train, Andy Black asked the waiter for a Tequila Sunrise, but was just joking and asked for a water instead. One of his tablemates protested over Black's decision to drink a non-alcoholic beverage... "What kind of Irishman are you?"
Alex Kostritsyn has someone at his table with a SARS mask.
German pro and PokerStars Shooting Star Ben Kang was super short and doubled up with... the Hammer. Kang was all in with 7-2o and doubled up against Big Slick. Beware of Germans wielding hammers in Las Vegas.
They are playing 4 levels today or down to 400 players... whichever comes first.
"400 today, fellas," said Commish as he passed through the press box.
"How about, 420?" asked Benjo.
2:05pm... Bubble Looms
Chip Leaders: ELKY and Ludovic Lacay
Recent Eliminations: Brian Lemke, Thierry van den Berg, Robert Cheung
Players Remaining: 660
Random story about Dutch pro... Thierry van den Berg. During the first WSOP-Europe, I once challenged him to a fistfight in Liecester Square in London. I thought that he was giving my girlfriend a hard time and I incorrectly singled him out for a fist pummeling. He got scared and insisted that it wasn't him and I quickly found out that it was two drunk Germans standing next to him that were being rude assholes. I apologized to Thierry and then challenged the Germans to step outside. Of course, they backed down and Charlie the floor guy 86'd them from the tournament area. Never a dull day on the road.
Scott Ian from Anthrax is sitting in front of the pressbox. His table is the next toget broken.
At 1:45pm, all spectators were booted from the room as the staff prepped for the Bubble with less than 670 to go.
I sweated some of the DonkeyBomber's table. Here's the lowdown on his table.
The Opponents...As you can tell, I like DonkeyBomber's table. He does too. He's well over 500K.
Seat 1: DonkeyBomber
Seat 2: Eurodonk from Holland in Garish Hoodie
Seat 3: Retired guy in ugly Hawaiian shirt
Seat 4: Crazy Asian in white hoodie
Seat 5: Online pothead pro
Seat 6: Country club guy from fly over state
Seat 7: German Eurodonk in soccer jersey
Seat 8: Jose Rosenkrantz aka cagey Costa Rican
Seat 9: Online qualifier playing in first WSOP
There are 658 players remaining. Hand-for-hand will begin with 653 players to go.
2:35pm... H4H
We're now hand-for-hand with 653 players remaining. Five people will go home with... nothing but heartache. Dreams crushed. Future squashed.
What are the shortstacks nitting it up for? $21,365.
3:05pm... Getting Close... 651 to Go
Chip Leaders: ELKY, Ludovic Lacay, James Akenhead
Recent Eliminations: Marco Esquondales, Hevad Khan and David Daneshgar
651 players remaining. I had the Bubble bursting at 4:20pm PT. It might get there a good 70 minutes earlier at this pace.
Ylon Schwartz is sitting in a seat at an empty table. He's obviously sweating someone on the verge of cashing. A short stack perhaps? As Otis noted, "He's waiting to walk whoever to the cage."
At this point of the Main Event, backers might be waiting for their horses to payback a shitload of makeup. Nothing is worse than busting out of the Main Event and walking to the cage with one of your creditors and having to hand over half if not more of it after a stressful week of poker.
The guy in the Indian head dress busted out before the Bubble. Otis saw him in the hallway within minutes of his elimination and he was slumped up against the bar shitfaced drunk.
"Not the best way to fulfill a negative racial stereotype," he said.
As I wrote a few hours ago, today is the most depressing and demoralizing day in the life of a poker player. When players bust out they often disappear for days, weeks, and even months. It takes them that long to shake off the tilt or they finally take that long-awaited vacation to a quiet place on a beach with white sand and rum drinks where there's no internet connection to tempt them to play online poker.
Only two players busted in 20 minutes of hand-for-hand. Kevin Saul was so bored that he tweet'd that he was bored and ordered a massage.
Lina, one of the writers from Sweden said, "Hand by hand... boring like hell!" If Scandinavians are complaining about the bleakness of the never-ending bubble, you know it's bad.
And Phil Hellmuth? What the fuck is he talking about in his latest tweet that MeanGene read aloud in the press box? "Mistakes!! I am still way too human!!"
So if Phil is not 100% human, what is he? A god? Machine? Alien? An alien-terminator hybrid?
3:24pm... One to Go
We are one more elimination away from the money bubble! 649 players left. Who will be the Bubble Boy?
4:05pm... Hurry Up... and Wait
Still here. On the bubble. Hands are lasting around ten minutes a piece. I learned a lot about my fellow media reps in that time... mostly about how much people will commit murder for hire. $420,000can get you a lot of your dirty work done if you are interested.
A handful of players have been sneaking out during the hand-for-hand to smoke cigarettes. Andy Black and Kelly Kim were among the hordes of nicotine addicts who headed for the smoking area in front of the Poker Kitchen.
On a good note, the DonkeyBomber is closing in on 780K. Bobby Baldwin avoided elimination when he doubled when he spiked a flush draw.
4:20pm... Smoke 'em if you got 'em!
As always, today's 4:20 smoke break is brought to you by... PokerStars!
And yes, I lost my Bubble Prop bet. I picked 4:20pm. One player was all in with A-A against a big stack's A-J. Everyone in the room chanted for a Jack. The flop was J-x-x and all of a sudden a Bubble Boy Bustout was probable. Sadly, he whiffed on the turn and the river. Some players booed and the short stack with Aces doubled up.
Still 649 to go.
4:34pm.... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
After two hours of hand-for-hand and 70 minutes of eagerly awaiting the Bubble Boy to bust... we're in the money in the WSOP Main Event! All 648 remaining players win at least $21,365. Kia Hamadani the Bubble Boy was humiliated by a public display of tomfoolery where Jack Link's notified him that he'd get a buy-in into the 2010 WSOP Main Event.
Hand for hand was 13 hands. Jack added 39 minutes (or three minutes per hand) to the clock. They also banned all electronic devices and head sets. No mas iPods.
Get ready for like 67 bustouts on the next hand.
5:55pm... 567 Players...
Chip Leaders: ELKY with 1.7 M, Ludovic Lacay, James Akenhead
Recent Eliminations: Trond Eidsvig, Scott Ian, Anthony Roux, and Kristy Gazes
Players Remaining: 567
We will be playing four levels or down to 400 players. We're fifteen minutes into Level 17 or the third level of the day. There will be a dinner break at 7:40pm.
Julian Brecard busted a player with A-K off vs. A-K off. Ouch. Nice catch, Poisson!
Sadly, Kristy Gazes' run is over at the WSOP when she busted out 592nd place.
Scott Ian from Anthrax is no longer here. However, LDP is going strong for the celebs.
Kara Scott and Carl Olson are both in. Olson has Kenny Tran at his table with a 1M stack. DonkeyBomber is over 600K, while Tyler Patterson is up to 750K.
So who cashed once the Bubble broke?
The Following players won $21,365...Stay tuned for more bustout info. Please note that this info is not 100% official or accurate.
505 George Abdallah
506 Luka Gojcaj
507 Kenneth Weiner
508 Van Nguyen
509 Babak Razi
510 Jason Adler
511 Paren Arzoomanian
512 Marc Goldman
513 Russell Kamer
514 Christopher Brammer
515 Peter Jetten
516 Eduardo Santi
517 Bingjian Wu
518 Steven van Zadelhoff
519 Antonio Abesamis
520 Colin Tang
521 Philippe Castella
522 Thomas Tyszkiewicz
523 Jesper Hougaard
524 Dan Makowsky
525 Armando Munoz-Calero
526 Jordan Seigel
527 Andre Schneider
528 Dumitru Filipescu
529 Bryan Swift
530 Robert Perelman
531 George Mazelis
532 Robert McLaughlin
533 Terry Garner
534 Raymond Muster
535 Nelson Dantas
536 Charlie Chang
537 Mark Sykes
538 Balazs Botond
539 Mark Gregorich
540 Romica Mihailov
541 Brian Shapiro
542 Ronald Wasiel
543 Ronald Cook
544 Cal Namihira
545 Joey Lovelady
546 Bjoern Wiesler
547 Alexandre Roos
548 Gylbert Drolet
549 Nikhil Persaud
550 Mark Wilds
551 Joas Mudde
552 Terry McKerchie
553 David Rohm
554 Clyde Nooris
555 Claus Vallo
556 Nuno Goncalves
557 Dennis Drescher
558 Farshad Fardad
559 Chris Verkerk
560 Dean Petersson
561 Jesus
562 Keith Wintermans
563 Nathan Hays
564 Mark Weil
565 Edwin Muller
566 Christopher Giannell
567 Magnus Persson
568 Robert Mobley
569 Steve Chung
570 Eldon Elias
571 Kyle Brown
572 Michael Mayhood
573 Brian Brunner
574 Joao de Lima
575 Edward Riordan
576 Michael Katz
577 David Postar
578 Michael Terhaar
579 Uffe Holm
580 Kevin Dean
581 John Scarpaci
582 David Schnettler
583 Jason Sackler
584 Clarence Willingham
585 Gavin Emrich
586 Kevin Allen
587 Michael Kinney
588 Diogo Borges
589 Mikael Thuritz
590 Ari Levy
591 David Sapery
592 Kristy Gazes
593 Preben Norup
594 Robert Slezak
595 Lee Pope
596 Thomas Werthman
597 David Williams
598 Jason Su
599 James Campbell
600 Steve Pestal
601 Luc Viry
602 Farukh Tach
603 David Wells
604 Anthony Roux
605 Frederick Kennedy
606 James Cain
607 Christina Renz
608 Michael Nye
609 Matthew Lawrence
610 Richard Kane
611 Benjamin Tang
612 Charles Pacheco
613 Matthew Casterella
614 Sylvester Geoghegan
615 Jason Lademan
616 Sol Bergren
617 David Black
618 Brian Hodhod
619 Melanie Banfield
620 Dana Kellstrom
621 Amir Marmar
622 Stuart Schrenzel
623 Morten Erlandsen
624 Carson Nunez
625 Paolo Gomes
626 Andrew Sayegh
627 James Massar
628 Erik Wilson
629 Miguel Gutierrez
630 Max Casal
631 Matthew Lubawski
632 Todd Flecther
633 Trond Eidsvig
634 John Olds
635 Joseph Gordon
636 Jaroslaw Osinski
637 Scott Ian
638 Trevor Savage
639 Gregory Merson
640 Maxwell Greenwood
641 Gabriel Vallejos
642 Magnus Meltzer
643 Edward Jones
644 Robert Roos
645 Matthias de Meulder
646 Robert Hauke
647 Staffan Fagelberg
648 Jay Chase
5:55pm... 468 Players...
Chip Leaders: ELKY, Ludovic Lacay, and Jordan Morgan
Recent Eliminations: Jesus, Paul Wasicka, Jesper Hougaard
Players Remaining: 468
A couple of the named pros hit the rail in the last hour including Jesus and 2006 runner-up Paul Wasicka.
Elky lost a sizable pot but he's still up in front.
There was also a money jump... almost $2,000!
There's about one hour left in this level. I think that the 400 number will come first than the 4th level. But can that happen before this level ends?
The following players won $25,027:
439 Christopher McCoy
440 Clark Curry
441 Jason Tremblay
442 Justin Bonomo
443 Joshua Kay
444 Jason Maxwell
445 Jeff Patrik Carlsson
446 Edward Harris
447 Randall Armitage
448 Nicholas Voyatzis
449 James Rumptz
450 Anthony Scherer
451 Michael Tucci
452 Surinder SUnar
453 Phil Mader
454 Ryan Franklin
455 Shayne Heine
456 Michael Krescanko
457 Karec Terrell
458 Geoffery Herzog
459 Julius Malzanini
460 Dino Brivati
461 Jerry Connor
462 Christopher Overgard
463 Dario Tosin
464 Maxwell Kirkpatrick
465 Richard Sinclair
466 Sean Dorn
467 Frank Szabo
468 Daniel Carter
469 George Medina
470 Henry Mlekoday
471 Kyle Brossia
472 Steven Feren
473 Radek Chvala
474 Martins Adeniya
475 Bryan Pimlott
476 Douglas Campbell
477 Robert Campbell
478 David Olson
479 Daniel Vorbeck
480 Paul Wasicka
481 Mohamedazam Razabsekh
482 Jason Melnick
483 Michael Graydon
484 Michael Lesle
485 Daniel Lococo
486 Carlos Oliveira
487 George Lusby
488 Fabrizio La Spada
489 Lennart Konst
490 William Brewin
491 Matthias Kuerschner
492 Jeffrey Freedman
493 Adrian Moreno
494 Not yet collected prize
495 Stephen Buchanan
496 Steven Dunkelberg
497 Leo Kam
498 Alexander Kostritsyn
499 Ronald Lee
500 Ryan Brauer
501 Anders Taylor
502 Sarah Hale
503 Jean Moussa
504 John Hammer
7:55pm... Day 4 Complete; Phil Hellmuth & Mike Sexton Eliminated
Chip Leaders: Ludovic Lacay and Jordan Morgan
Recent Eliminations: Patrick Bruel, Phil Hellmuth, Carter King, Matt Brady, Zee Justin, and Alexander Kostritsyn
Players Remaining: 407
It was a weird day. Before action started, there were rumors about having a shortened day. And just before action began, it was confirmed that Day 4 would end when action dwindled down to 400 players or through four levels of play... whichever happened first.
The first level featured rapid fire eliminations and when action resumed after the first break, we were hand-for-hand with 5 eliminations off the money bubble. It would take two hours from that point to bust the bubble.
Immediately following the bubble, a slew of eliminations ensued. The field was being busted at such a fast rate that the staff decided to end action at the completion of level 3. There was no reason to send players on a ninety minute dinner break and then have them come back until one or two more tables broke.
Anyway, we currently have approximately 407 players left on Day 4. Elky started the day as the chipleader, but lost it late in the day. His fellow countryman Ludovic Lacay had snagged the lead and was one of the first players past 2 million in chips. He ended the day with a lot less but still is among the leaders.
The following players won $27,469:Stay tuned for official information, chip counts, and an end of Day 4 recap. Thanks for following along.
408 Thomas West
409 Antoine Amourette
410 Victor Greeley
411 Paulus Valkenburg
412 Julian Parmann
413 Fredrik Hellstrom
414 Robert Ching
415 Jeffrey Norman
416 Kenneth Kessler
417 Mark Lisinsky
418 Lance Gettler
419 Mathieu Jaqmin
420 Mike Sexton
421 Michael Hibler
422 Stan Sinclair
423 Kelly Kim
424 Craig McConville
425 Ramzi Jelassi
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
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