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.........