WSOP main event Day 5

Day 5 started out with just 189 players left in this years main event. Among them were 5 pros that all had a great chance to make a final table run. Going into the day Shawn Sheikhan, Allen Cunningham, and Gus Hansen all had over 1 million chips which put them up near the chip leaders. The WSOP has a motto that "any hand can make you and any hand can break you" when dealing with No Limit Hold 'Em. Never had that motto been more true than yesterday with these 3 guys.

Allen Cunningham:
He took a big hit to his stack when an opponent hit a river full house against him early in the day. He then played very tight the rest of the day until he played his last hand.
Cunningham moved all in preflop for 255,000 and Tim Loecke made the call in the small blind. Cunningham: Loecke: The board ran out to end another deep Main Event run for Allen Cunningham in 117th place for $41,816 in prize money.

Gus Hansen:
Hansen started the day with 1.3 million chips, and seemed to be doing just fine until two hands back-to-back put Hansen from penthouse to outhouse.
Hansen put half his stack in on a straight/flush draw, giving him 17 outs twice to bust his opponent but it never happened leaving him with 750,000.
On the next hand Gus lost a coin toss (A-K vs 8-8) when his A-K failed to catch on the board and just like that Gus Hansen had busted out of the main event.

Shawn Sheikhan:
This guy is a total hardass and im actually glad he is out. Sheikhan raised from late position, and was reraised by Jamal Kunbuz from the button. It folded back around to Sheikhan who shoved his entire stack -- around 1.5 million -- and Kunbuz snap-called. Sheikhan: Kunbuz: The board ran out , and Kunbuz catapults to 3.2 million. Sheikhan is now all of sudden walking towards the exits in dramatic fashion.

ONLY 2 pros left:
I couldnt hand pick two pros whom id want to have as the last two remaining in the field, Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow. Many peoples dream came true when they saw Hellmuth heading over the ESPN feature table where he sits down in seat 8, directly next to Mike Matusow.
These guys are great friends and were talking to each other about how they have gotten this far in the main event, the crowd was entertained all night long.

LAST HAND OF THE NIGHT:
Phil Hellmuth seemed to be playing calm and tight ever since he arrived at the feature table, but the very last hand of the night changed all of that, Hellmuth finally had his big blow up for the tournament.
Cristian Dragomir opened with a raise to 80,000 before Hellmuth made it 255,000 to go from the small blind. "I hope he doesn't have aces," said Hellmuth as Dragomir asked for a count. After a few moments, Dragomir made the call. They saw a flop of and Hellmuth checked to Dragomir, who thought for a moment before firing a healthy bet of 300,000. Hellmuth sighed in disgust before folding face-up on the table. Matusow laughed and said to Dragomir to show the bluff, and Dragomir flipped !!! Matusow and the crowd roared in hysterics as Hellmuth jumped out of his seat and stormed around the room berating his opponent for calling his reraise with ten high. "Listen buddy, you're an idiot!" screamed Hellmuth. "This is the Main Event and you are the worst player in history!" he continued as the crowd was loving every moment of the blow-up. Dragomir's entourage continued to cheer as Hellmuth continued the barrage. The tournament director stepped in and issued a warning to Hellmuth to settle down before Dragomir stood up out of his chair to put Hellmuth back in his place with a cry of, "Enough is enough!" Fortunately for both players the clock ticked over to the end of the level, and the end of the day's play to settle both players down. Mike Matusow summed up the situation best as he shouted, "Thank God for Phil Hellmuth!

In the end that last hand really hurt Hellmuth dropping him down to under 800,000 chips putting him very near the bottom on an extreme short stack. It gets even worse for Hellmuth because he couldnt be controlled by the tournament director, so they had to call supervisor Steve Frezer to calm him down. He was given a 10 min penalty tomorrow which means hes probably going to lose 72,000 chips from the antes/small blind/big blind. Hellmuth has a ton of work to make up if he wants to continue deep into tomorrow. Meanwhile Mike Matusow sits on about 1.2 million chips which is also below average but gives him a much better chance than Hellmuth of surviving tomorrow.

At the end of the day there were only 79 players remaining. The average stack is about 1.8 million and the big stack is Mark Ketteringham with 5.8 million chips. History can still be made here as there is one female remaining in the main event and she sits in 3rd place overall with 3.8 million chips.

Day 6 takes place today and blog # 5 will be out tomorrow afternoon recapping the action...

BASIC KNOWLEDGE.........

WSOP main event Days 3 & 4

DAY 3:

Heading into Day 3 it was the first day in which all the remaining players were playing on the same day in the same room. Naturally there were media members and ESPN cameras swarming the remaining players all day making it hard for anyone to even breathe in the poker room. Many people must have been feeling the pressure as the first level of play for the day (2hrs) saw over 300 people bust out. We had reached under 1,000 players by the time the first break rolled around.
Going into Day 3 there were 6 big name pros still going for the title; Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, Mike Matusow, Johnny Chan, Shawn Sheikhan, Phil Hellmuth. The pros all had mediocre days, but they did survive the day mainly by taking advantage of short stacks who were trying to survive to make the money. Usually the money bubble doesnt come around until early in Day 4, although this year the pace of play is very quick and we are way ahead of schedule. By the time the dinner break rolled around (10pm ET/7pm PT) the money bubble had arrived. With the top 666 players getting paid I would hate to be busted out in 667th place. However, someone has to be the bubble boy, and this year that guy's name is Steve Chung. Steve busts out in 667th place but it isnt all that bad. The WSOP will give Steve a free seat in next year's main event, not a bad consolation prize. When it was all said and done there were only 474 players who survived through day 3. Heading into Day 4 were 5 big name pros left, all hovering near the middle of the pack.

DAY 4:

Day 4 begins with 474 players left in the main event. We are so far ahead of pace that tournament directors actually started play an hour later than usual, this is the first time a WSOP main event day hasnt begun at 12pm PT. As many know, Phil Hellmuth's trademark is showing up 2 hrs late to the main event every year for Day 1. Well today it seems Hellmuth is in total focus mode as he arrived at the casino 2 hrs EARLY. Hellmuth was quoted as saying, "I need to sit down and get in the zone so I can get up to 1 million chips by the end of the day."

BIG NAME PRO/POKER LEGEND BUSTS OUT EARLY:
Johnny Chan came into the day with a little over 300,000 chips, but today just wasnt his day.
The two-time World Champion moved all in for his last 143,000 before the flop holding and Damien Creurer called with . Chan got no help from the board and his quest to win his third title came to an end..

ALLEN CUNNINGHAM FLYING HIGH:
Allen Cunningham, who finished in 4th place in the 2006 main event, just took down one of the biggest pots of the tournament. The exact cards were not reported but Cunningham apparently made a flush on the river to rake in a major pot. Cunningham seems poised to make a big run at another final table as he takes the tournament chip lead with over 1,200,000 million chips.

Day 4- THE PHIL HELLMUTH STORY:
After losing much of his stack during play today Phil Hellmuth finally saw a good hand win some money for him. He doubled up through Allen Kennedy who raised to 20,000 before the flop and Hellmuth called from the button. They saw a flop and when Kennedy bet 25,000 Phil moved in for his last 112,000. Kennedy called and his was well behind Hellmuth's . Kennedy needed to find an ace but the fell on the turn and the on the river and Hellmuth doubled up to 241,000.

Later in the night, Phil Hellmuth raised preflop to 18,000, and Keith Ferrera called. The flop came . Hellmuth bet 20,000, and Ferrara called. The turn was the , and both checked. Both also checked the on the river. "Ace high," said Hellmuth. Ferrera turned over A-Q, and Hellmuth mucked in disgust. Ferrera's queen kicker played. "I just got called for 20,000 with ace high on the flop," said Hellmuth. "I'm gonna get some bucks from that guy for sure." Hellmuth dropped to a respectable 415,000 at that point in time.

After dropping most of his stack and facing elimination, Hellmuth got a late double up right before played ended on Day 4 to get his stack just under 600,000... well short of his 1 million chip goal, but enough chips to give him a chance on Day 5.

MIKE MATUSOW AND GUS HANSEN PUT ON A SHOW ALL DAY:
Mike Matusow was running his mouth as usual to his tablemates whom he had never met before today. However he took a pause and saw none other then Gus Hansen heading his way to take a seat at his table. These guys are great friends, and had some hilarious banter back and forth all day long. The first example came when Matusow made a preflop raise to 22,000. The action folded to Hansen in the big blind. "You get 20 seconds, then I'm calling the floor. We're not going through all the bullshit," said Matusow. Hansen put in a re-raise, which prompted a fold from Matusow. Matusow continued mocking Hansen as the pot was pushed toward the Great Dane. Hansen, who often carries a tape recorder with him at tournaments to document his play, flipped it on. "I just bluffed Mike Matusow," he said, to laughter from the crowd.

Things weren't so funny later in the day for Matusow who found himself in the midst of a big hand. Matusow had about 500,000 on him going into the hand was staring at a big raise from his opponent. Matusow responded by making an even bigger re-raise and pushing all of his 500,000 in the middle. His opponent called instantly and flipped over pocket Aces, causing many "ohhh-s and ahhh-s" from the crowd. Everyones eyes shot to Matusow expecting F-bombs to start flying, but instead Matusow started laughing his ass off and also flipped over pocket Aces. The pot was split and neither guy seemed to play a pot the rest of the night, Matusow finished the night a little under stacked at about 475,000.

END OF DAY 4:
At the end of Day 4 we only had 189 players left. Tournament directors let the players go home 45 min early which drew major celebrations from the exhausted players. The chip leader is Jeremy Jospeh with 2,187,00. With the average chip stack in the room sitting at about 675,000 chips here is the chip counts for the 5 remaining big name pros.

Shawn Sheikhan- 1,516,000
Gus Hansen- 1,367,000
Allen Cunningham- 1,141,000
Phil Hellmuth- 581,000
Mike Matusow- 458,000

blog for day 5 will be released tomorrow....... BASIC KNOWLEDGE........

WSOP main event Days 2A, 2B

Now that days 1A-1D are complete, its time to move on to the official day 2 of the tournament, which will also be broken up....this time into two different days (2A,2B). The tournament started with just under 7,000 players, and heading into Day 2 half of the field was already eliminated. These two days provided us with drama, entertainment, vulgar language, and of course Phil Hellmuth; who just happens to be all of those things rolled into one.

DRAMA: The drama of the day came from Jerry Yang. With media people surrounding his table all day to see how the defending champion would play. He started off very nicely raking in a few medium sized pots, but Yang couldnt make it out of Day 2. Yang got short and shoved with A 2 only to run into an opponent with A Q. God came through again for Yang when two pair appeared on the board and they chopped it up, but when he shoved again with A J against an opponent’s A 9 it was clear Jesus had a purpose for this other man today as a nine fell eliminating Yang. So there will be a new champion of the main event this year.

EXCITEMENT: Much of the excitement surrounded 95-yr old Jack Ury, who survived Day 1 of the main event for the 2nd straight year. How a 95-yr old man manages to sit at a poker table for 14 straight hours without any issues is beyond me. However 5 hours into play Jack Ury was eliminated. For some reason he let himself get blinded down to only 700 chips before deciding to go All-In. Ury was eliminated and left the poker room, but not before ESPN caught up with him for a ''post-game'' interview.
"I cant see, cant hear, cant walk, but I CAN play poker," said Ury.
When asked if he would be back next year to play Ury simply responded with, "If I am still alive!"


VULGAR LANGUAGE: Apparently the F-Bomb is being dropped all over the place today in amazon poker room. Causing tournament directors to make an announcement that increased the penalty for the F-bomb. Players caught directing the F-bomb towards any other person will have a 30min penalty away from the table. FUCK!!!

PHIL HELLMUTH: Phil Hellmuth is drama, action, intensity, excitement, entertainment, and vulgar language all rolled into one, and he has expressed all of it today. After losing a big hand in the middle of the day Hellmuth cursed out his opponent and then went to the rail to complain to his wife (all in front of the cameras of course). He then went on immediate TILT. However TILT seemed to help Hellmuth. He dropped half his stack down to 100,000 chips, but brought it all the way back to 180,000 after playing 6 straight hands and winning them all. An excellent time for Hellmuth to pick up some hands. When the day was over he was near the top of the leaderboard with just under 200,000 chips.

HARD MOMENT OF THE NIGHT: Just as Day 2B was coming to an end, cameras caught up to Table 1 of the main event. Sitting in seat 3 was none other than Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris just had made a great fold at his table when he folded his pocket Js post-flop against his opponents pocket Aces. It has been brought to my attention that Chuck Norris doesnt dodge pocket aces... pocket aces dodge Chuck Norris. The person who had the pocket Aces was none of then his table mate, Steve Austin. Obviously Steve Austin doesnt put his money in unless he has the 'Stone Cold' nuts. This has to go down in history as the hardest hand ever played in main event history.

PRO UPDATE: At the end of Day 2A and 2B there are still a massive number of top pros still left in the main event. Allen Cunningham, Hoyt Corkins, Gus Hansen, Jennifer Harmen, Vanessa Rousso, Jeff Madsen, Johnny Chan, Mike Matusow, Patrik Antonius, and Phil Hellmuth are among the many still left.

PREVIEW: Day 3 takes place on Thursday with all the players finally in the same room. At the start of Day 3 there will be 1,300 players left in the main event. With the top 666 players getting paid we should know everyone in the money by the end of Day 3. Another blog will be coming out after Day 4 which is on Friday.... so until then lets go Hellmuth! peace.

BASIC KNOWLEDGE.........