WSOP Update

[Easy n Dirty]

Just from reading these updates, it seems that there are some pretty dramatic swings in that 7-card stud tournament - people who are in the top 3 in one update have fallen off the planet by the time the next update comes around, which isn't usually that long. Kinda' glad for selfish reasons that Josh Arieh plunged, as I made a last minute change to my roster to drop Arieh for Phil Laak, and Laak has barely made a peep so far.

[Cyclones]

Just from reading these updates, it seems that there are some pretty dramatic swings in that 7-card stud tournament - people who are in the top 3 in one update have fallen off the planet by the time the next update comes around, which isn't usually that long. Kinda' glad for selfish reasons that Josh Arieh plunged, as I made a last minute change to my roster to drop Arieh for Phil Laak, and Laak has barely made a peep so far.

 

 

I am going to pick up some points in these two tournies, as I have Hellmuth, Luske, Ferguson and Arieh (although the lists were pretty close to the same for many of us, so I am sure most are in the same boat.) So far my biggest mistakes were leaving Mortensen out and putting Mizrachi 2nd. Doofus!

[muck]

$5000 no-limit hold-em -- 10 players left

 

 

...Final Table in order of current chip stack, plus the #10 - #16 players...

 

1Quoc Al "Vinnie" Vinh784,000

2Phil Hellmuth Jr.461,000

3Marcel Luske458,000

4Isabelle Mercier301,000

5Jeff Cabanillas275,000

6Douglas Carli273,000

7Eugene Todd240,000

8Thomas Schreiber200,000

9Dan Smith117,000

 

 

10Dang Trinh

11Thomas Fuller

12Keith Tilston

13Tommy Vedes

14Paul Wasicka

15Conor Tate

16Rob Hollink

[muck]

...$1500 7 card stud ... 40 players left ... of note...

 

2. David Williams

20. Johnny Chan

 

Apparently late last night, John D'Agostino, Greg Raymer and Josh Arieh busted. I can't find anything about Chris Ferguson, Tony Guoga or John Juanda. Sometimes I'm not sure that their links are sending me to the right tourneys given the players that seem to show up/drop off w/o a trace... Besides, when I logged off last night, there were 34 players ... now there are 40? Dunno...just reporting what I see.

[Easy n Dirty]

 

Apparently late last night, John D'Agostino, Greg Raymer and Josh Arieh busted. I can't find anything about Chris Ferguson, Tony Guoga or John Juanda. Sometimes I'm not sure that their links are sending me to the right tourneys given the players that seem to show up/drop off w/o a trace... Besides, when I logged off last night, there were 34 players ... now there are 40? Dunno...just reporting what I see.

 

 

I saw a quick video clip of Daniel negreanu, and one of the things he mentioned is that apparently alot of people have been complaining about the cardplayer.com updates. Negreanu said that they are using interns to do this stuff, and that more reliable updates can be found at pokerwire.com, because they've been doing this for a long time.

 

pokerwire updates can be found here.

[muck]

$5000 no limit

 

eight left

 

1. Marcel Luske

2. Phil Hellmuth

 

...everyone else has <1/2 the Hellmuth's stack...

[muck]

$1500 no limit

 

32 left ... of note ...

 

13. Marco Traniello

17. Joe Sebok

17. Kenna James

25. TJ Cloutier

26. Rene Angelil

[muck]

$5000 Omaha Hi/Lo

 

lots of people left (260?)

 

of note

 

1. Andrew Bloch

3. Chris Ferguson

4. Amir Vahedi

5. Gavin Smith

7. Roland De Wolfe

10. Toto Leonidas

11. Greg Raymer

13. Doyle Brunson

14. Andrew Black

14. Erick Lindgren

16. Ted Forrest

17. Erik Seidel

17. John D'Agostino

20. Sean Sheikhad

23. Scotty Nguyen

25. John Phan

26. Sam Farha

26. Todd Brunson

30. Men Nguyen

31. Mike Mizrachi

32. Huck Seed

33. John Juanda

34. Allen Cunningham

35. Phil Ivey

35. Hasan Habib

35. Josh Arieh

35. Scott Fischman

35. Mike Sexton

35. Tony Guoga

35. Annie Duke

35. Max Pescatori

35. Joseph Hachem

56. Layne Flack

59. Robert Varkonyi

60. Gus Hanson

 

...etc...

[muck]

$5000 no limit

 

Two left.

 

1. Jeff Cabanillas $1,650,000

2. Phil Hellmuth $1,500,000

 

others that are on someones lineup:

 

4. Marcel Luske

Edited July 7, 2006 by muck

[muck]

7 card stud ... 8 players left ...

 

1John Hoang 170,000

2David Williams 142,000

3Ivan Swertzer 118,500

4Jack Duncan 106,000

5"Miami" John Cernuto 86,000

6Mitchell Ledis 43,500

7Matt Hawrilenko 32,000

8Johnny Chan 26,500

 

9Mark Dickstein

10Victor Shkurka

11Jon Knout

12Tam Nguyen

13Charlie Ng

14Jim McManus

15Neal Friets

16John Womack

[muck]

$1500 Limit Hold-em

 

22 left ... of note:

 

3. Joe Sebok

 

...and a few other people that aren't probably on anyone's roster...

[muck]

$5000 Omaha High/Low

 

lots of players left ... guys w/ lots of chips and of note ...

 

3. Gavin Smith

4. Phil Ivey

4. Ted Forrest

4. Scotty Nguyen

8. Mike Caro

10. Sean Sheikhan

11. Tony Guoga

13. Jennifer Harman

15. Andrew Black

16. Sam Farha

16. Greg Raymer

18. Chris Ferguson

19. Michael Mizrachi (they have "Robert Mizrachi" listed ... gotta be a typo)

20. Amir Vahedi

28. Annie Duke

28. John D'Agostino

30. Mike Matusow

31. Allen Cunningham

31. Roand De Wolfe

33. Doyle Brunson

34. Max Pescatori

35. David Grey

35. Men Nguyen

37. Andrew Bloch

39. Toto Leonidas

42. Joseph Hachem

44. Robert Varkonyi

47. Todd Brunson

48. Michael Mizrachi (dunno why he's listed 2x ... maybe the first guy is his brother?)

51. David "Devil Fish" Ulliott

51. Erik Seidel

54. Jean-Robert Bellande

55. Michael Gracz

[muck]

$5000 no limit

 

 

Its over.

 

1. Jeff Cabanillas

2. Phil Hellmuth

3. Eugene Todd

4. Marcel Luske

5. Isabelle Mercier

6. Thomas Schreiber

7. Douglas Carli

8. Quoc Al "Vinny" Vinh

9. Dan Smith

10. Dang Trinh

11. Thomas Fuller

12. Keith Tilston

13. Tommy Vedes

14. Paul Waskicka

15. Conor Tate

[Easy n Dirty]

7 card stud ... 8 players left ...

 

 

14Jim McManus

 

 

This guy is an interesting story - he's a reporter who went to Vegas some years back to do a story on the murder of Ted Binion and the ensuing trial, and to cover the WSOP that was going on at the same time. While there, he used the advance he got from Harpers to enter and win a satellite for an antry into the WSOP main event, where he made the final table and won close to a quarter of a million. The book he ended up writing is called Positively Fifth Street and was a really good read.

 

Since then, he seems to pop up every once in awhile at poker tables on TV, so he must be a pretty good player as well as a good writer. In this weeks' episode of the Professional Poker Tour on the Travel Channel, he was the high stack when the show ended, maybe halfway through the tournament (I guess the finale is next week). He also once got into an argument on a TV table with another prominent player, I'm not sure what the circumstances were or even who the other guy was, just remember he got some publicity for something along those lines too.

 

I would definitely recommend his book to poker fans.

[Bring Back Pat!!!]

$5000 Omaha High/Low

 

lots of players left ... guys w/ lots of chips and of note ...

 

3. Gavin Smith

4. Phil Ivey

4. Ted Forrest

4. Scotty Nguyen

8. Mike Caro

10. Sean Sheikhan

11. Tony Guoga

13. Jennifer Harman

15. Andrew Black

16. Sam Farha

16. Greg Raymer

18. Chris Ferguson

19. Michael Mizrachi (they have "Robert Mizrachi" listed ... gotta be a typo)

20. Amir Vahedi

28. Annie Duke

28. John D'Agostino

30. Mike Matusow

31. Allen Cunningham

31. Roand De Wolfe

33. Doyle Brunson

34. Max Pescatori

35. David Grey

35. Men Nguyen

37. Andrew Bloch

39. Toto Leonidas

42. Joseph Hachem

44. Robert Varkonyi

47. Todd Brunson

48. Michael Mizrachi (dunno why he's listed 2x ... maybe the first guy is his brother?)

51. David "Devil Fish" Ulliott

51. Erik Seidel

54. Jean-Robert Bellande

55. Michael Gracz

 

 

 

Wow, I think 9 of those guys are on my roster, including 5 of top 9 ... time to earn some points!!

Edited July 7, 2006 by Bring Back Pat!!!

[Easy n Dirty]

Wow, I think 9 of those guys are on my roster, including 5 of top 9 ... time to earn some points!!

 

 

Easy now Pat, lots can still happen.

 

Per pokerwire, the standings at the end of yesterday, with 26 players remaining in this $5000 Omaha Hi/Lo tournament:

 

Permalink | View Chip Count

Chip Count -

Place Name Chip Count

1 Gavin Smith 118,000

2 Sam Farha 115,000

3 Ryan Hughes 110,000

4 Jim Ferrel 109,000

5 Mike Henrich 95,000

6 Richard Ashby 83,000

7 Mike Wattel 71,000

8 Kirill Gerasimov 69,000

9 Phil Ivey 56,000

10 Jason Zimmerman 52,000

11 Van Marcus 48,000

12 Mike O' Malley 40,000

13 Brent L. Carter 37,000

14 Lonnie Heimowitz 36,000

15 Andrew Bloch 33,000

15 Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson 33,000

17 Brett Jungblut 30,000

18 Brian Nadell 27,000

19 Jeff Freedman 23,000

20 Jeff King 21,000

21 Andrew Black 17,000

22 Arthur Vandermeeren 16,000

23 Steve Cowley 13,000

24 Mike Caro 11,000

25 Clyde Hinton 10,000

26 G. Richard Tatalovich 2,000

 

I believe blinds are now 2k/3k, with limits at 3k/6k, so a number of these players stand to be eliminated very shortly (this is where play ended yesterday, not sure if limits will be bumped when play resumes at 3PM today).

 

I think there is a pro player named Robert Mizraichi, not sure that was a typo, but in any event there are no Mizraichis left per pokerwire.

 

I've heard a number of players say that Sammy Farha is the best pot-limit Omaha player in the world. This is not pot limit Omaha, but in general he is a very dangerous Omaha player. I always like watching him play, seems like a cool guy.

[Big Country]

Answering some of the questions -

 

Robert Mizrachi IS Michael Mizrachi's older brother, and many consider him as good if not better than Michael. Michael had an extremely impressive run in 2005 that garnered him a lot of publicity. I p[ersonally see Michael as the better player.

 

Regarding Jim McManus, he is a very solid player, and Positively Fifth Street was a very good read. His story was also part of the Histopry Channel special on poker. THe player he got into an argument with with Ellix Powers, the "homeles" bum who made the final table, supposedly a decect player from the LA area. The argument arose because Ellix was doing things like straddling, raising blind, etc, and McManus said it was bad for the game... John Hennigan was at the table as well as said he actually thought it was good for the game as it added some fun to the otherwise tense final table.

 

On a separate note, another really good book that I would reccomend is The Banker, The PRofessor and The Suicide King. It is all about the story of Andy BEal and the "Big Game"... meaning swings of tens of millions of dollars in single sessions. It gave me a whole new level of respect for the gamble in some of these poker players, in particular Ted Forrest and what he did on his way back from LA when he heard there was a real high stakes game going on. Very interesting... talk about willing to risk it all.

[Easy n Dirty]

 

On a separate note, another really good book that I would reccomend is The Banker, The PRofessor and The Suicide King. It is all about the story of Andy BEal and the "Big Game"... meaning swings of tens of millions of dollars in single sessions. It gave me a whole new level of respect for the gamble in some of these poker players, in particular Ted Forrest and what he did on his way back from LA when he heard there was a real high stakes game going on. Very interesting... talk about willing to risk it all.

 

 

Agreed, excellent book. Not sure if you're aware, but since that book, Beal and The Syndicate have gone at it at least one, maybe two more times. In the last one, Beal was doing extremely well until The Syndicate put Phil Ivey at the table - Beal couldn't figure him out and Ivey cleaned him out I believe.

 

For those not familiar with the story - Beal is an extremely wealthy Texas businessman (the banker in the title of the book) who has gone to Vegas to try to beat the pros. They play very high limit, heads up hold 'em. The pros don't have enough money individually, so they pool their money and are called The Syndicate. At any given time, The Syndicate consists of different players, and it's often kind of a mystery as to who is in and who is out. Ther's also a constant struggle as to the limits - Beal wants the limits as high as possible to get the pros out of their comfort zone, while the pros try to keep the limits lower. I believe last time around they played $50k/$100k limits, which is as high as the pros have gone so far, and both parties started with a bankroll of $10 million. Beal plays every game for his side, while The Syndicate will rotate players in, although there are some pre-negotiated rules on that too (I think at one point Beal had a rule put in that prevented Howard Lederer from representing The Syndicate).

 

The game is played in a roped off section so there's also some mystery as to who won and how much - the book above that Big Country mentions, written by Michael Craig, documents the first time this happened. Afterwards, Beal said he was done with the game, but he's been back like I said at least once, maybe twice since. It's a fascinating read as to how this guy trained himself to avoid tells and to be able to compete with the pros at this level

[wildcat2334]

Sounds great- I need a new book- I will have to pick that one up.

 

Is it me or does it seem like Hellmuth is gonna do some damage all series long? he seems to be on his game.

[Big Country]

Hellmuth is always a threat in no-limit holdem tournies.... but, his biggest knock is that that is his only game. It is the only game for which he has a WSOP bracelet (not knocking in anyway, just pointing out), while Brunson and Chan have it in multiple games (talking about 10 bracelet winners here)

 

RE: the Big Fame, I do believe Ivey went on something like an 18 million dollar run, taking the syndicate from down 8 million to up 10 million inhis session, which was for about 8 hours.

[TDFFFreak]

Agreed, excellent book. Not sure if you're aware, but since that book, Beal and The Syndicate have gone at it at least one, maybe two more times. In the last one, Beal was doing extremely well until The Syndicate put Phil Ivey at the table - Beal couldn't figure him out and Ivey cleaned him out I believe.

For those not familiar with the story - Beal is an extremely wealthy Texas businessman (the banker in the title of the book) who has gone to Vegas to try to beat the pros. They play very high limit, heads up hold 'em. The pros don't have enough money individually, so they pool their money and are called The Syndicate. At any given time, The Syndicate consists of different players, and it's often kind of a mystery as to who is in and who is out. Ther's also a constant struggle as to the limits - Beal wants the limits as high as possible to get the pros out of their comfort zone, while the pros try to keep the limits lower. I believe last time around they played $50k/$100k limits, which is as high as the pros have gone so far, and both parties started with a bankroll of $10 million. Beal plays every game for his side, while The Syndicate will rotate players in, although there are some pre-negotiated rules on that too (I think at one point Beal had a rule put in that prevented Howard Lederer from representing The Syndicate).

 

The game is played in a roped off section so there's also some mystery as to who won and how much - the book above that Big Country mentions, written by Michael Craig, documents the first time this happened. Afterwards, Beal said he was done with the game, but he's been back like I said at least once, maybe twice since. It's a fascinating read as to how this guy trained himself to avoid tells and to be able to compete with the pros at this level

 

 

This is true as I have a friend who had a piece of the action and Ivey took a nice chunk of change.

[Bring Back Pat!!!]

Easy now Pat, lots can still happen.

 

Per pokerwire, the standings at the end of yesterday, with 26 players remaining in this $5000 Omaha Hi/Lo tournament:

 

Permalink | View Chip Count

Chip Count -

Place Name Chip Count

1 Gavin Smith 118,000

2 Sam Farha 115,000

3 Ryan Hughes 110,000

4 Jim Ferrel 109,000

5 Mike Henrich 95,000

6 Richard Ashby 83,000

7 Mike Wattel 71,000

8 Kirill Gerasimov 69,000

9 Phil Ivey 56,000

10 Jason Zimmerman 52,000

11 Van Marcus 48,000

12 Mike O' Malley 40,000

13 Brent L. Carter 37,000

14 Lonnie Heimowitz 36,000

15 Andrew Bloch 33,000

15 Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson 33,000

17 Brett Jungblut 30,000

18 Brian Nadell 27,000

19 Jeff Freedman 23,000

20 Jeff King 21,000

21 Andrew Black 17,000

22 Arthur Vandermeeren 16,000

23 Steve Cowley 13,000

24 Mike Caro 11,000

25 Clyde Hinton 10,000

26 G. Richard Tatalovich 2,000

 

I believe blinds are now 2k/3k, with limits at 3k/6k, so a number of these players stand to be eliminated very shortly (this is where play ended yesterday, not sure if limits will be bumped when play resumes at 3PM today).

 

I think there is a pro player named Robert Mizraichi, not sure that was a typo, but in any event there are no Mizraichis left per pokerwire.

 

I've heard a number of players say that Sammy Farha is the best pot-limit Omaha player in the world. This is not pot limit Omaha, but in general he is a very dangerous Omaha player. I always like watching him play, seems like a cool guy.

 

 

 

Well, still have 4 players alive, not bad

[Easy n Dirty]

 

RE: the Big Fame, I do believe Ivey went on something like an 18 million dollar run, taking the syndicate from down 8 million to up 10 million inhis session, which was for about 8 hours.

 

 

 

Wow, I didn't know that. That's pretty unbelieveable if it's accurate, means the pros were within $2m of losing the match and their entire $10m. Noone really knows how much any individual pro had invested, but if they had lost the entire $10m I gotta' believe some of those guys woulda' taken some pretty meaningful hits to their bankrolls. They must love Ivey for bailing them out.

 

HU limit poker is usually about constant aggression, often raising and reraising with absolutely nothing. Pretty hard to reraise with nothing, especially on the turn and river when the big bet is in play.

 

I've been playing alot of limit poker lately (at slightly lower limits than $50k/$100k ) - I think if you play a very tight, by-the-book game, you can win at low stakes (say up to $3/$6) limit poker at a 10-man table fairly consistently. But it's pretty hard to maintain the discipline - playing by-the-book means you are folding pre-flop an extremely high percentage of the time, and quite frankly it's not even that much fun, although it is profitable. I've been playing at 6-man tables, and while I'm winning more than I'm losing, I'm still trying to find the right balance between the extremely tight approach that works for a 10-man table and the extremely aggressive approach that I think works at HU. You can't win long-term at 6-man tables without looseining up your starting hand requirements (versus what is preached in the various books out there, which is seemingly always catered to a full table game), but I'm still struggling to find the right balance.

[Big Country]

Limit poker is very much about pushing every small edge you can get, and this means maybe seeing at most 20% of the flops, but pushing hard. No-limit is about pushing big advantages, even if it means folding when you may ahve small advantages at times to get it in with the big advantage later, very much like tourney play.

 

I don;t believe $10 mil was there entire roll, just the agreed upon stake for that particular trip. I believe they have a fairly significant pooled rol lfor this.

 

TDFF- not going to question you on this, however, I know the pros are extremely selective about who is allowed in and who has any piece of the action.... would take a very significant amount of money just to get a piece of them from my understanding.

[Cyclones]

Limit poker is very much about pushing every small edge you can get, and this means maybe seeing at most 20% of the flops, but pushing hard. No-limit is about pushing big advantages, even if it means folding when you may ahve small advantages at times to get it in with the big advantage later, very much like tourney play.

 

I don;t believe $10 mil was there entire roll, just the agreed upon stake for that particular trip. I believe they have a fairly significant pooled rol lfor this.

 

TDFF- not going to question you on this, however, I know the pros are extremely selective about who is allowed in and who has any piece of the action.... would take a very significant amount of money just to get a piece of them from my understanding.

 

 

Agreed BC. Limit poker is a weird game. Jamming a pot preflop (while always correct with a big hand) prices other players in to make calls on draws later in the hand, and with the limits, there is often no way to push them off of it. I stay away from limit games, overall I have lost at them. I do best at mid level buy in tournies (and by mid level I mean 50-250.)