As the day wore on attrition took it’s toll on Phil Hellmuth’s stack. He lost another sizable pot and then the antes began their remorseless nibbling at what was left. Until this was all that was left:
To compare, this is the stack of Cody Slaubaugh, the chip leader at the time who was sitting at Phil’s table:
Phil was eventually anted down to the felt, where he was all-in on his big blind. He lost, and was out. He won $3,231 for his 113th-place finish, but he had a last-longer bet with Roland de Wolfe (at 20-1 odds) and lost $2,000 when he was eliminated. Phil just tweeted that he played Chinese poker afterwards at $500 a point…and lost 101 points. I’ll leave you to do the math. Suffice to say, today did not provide quite the results Phil Hellmuth was looking for.
They say you need at least a little bit of luck to win a poker tournament, and sometimes the good fortune comes not in the cards you’re dealt but in the seat you’re assigned. If you sit down, don’t recognize a soul, and find that the most of the table talk revolves around subjects such as “Boy, I hope I make to the dinner break this time!”, chances are you’ve landed an advantageous draw. If, on the other hand, you sit down and every face staring back at you is familiar from TV and magazine covers, and there’s a crowd of railbirds and photographers and camera operators pressing close and you overhear a reporter describe your new home as the “Table of DEATH”, well, maybe you’ve just had a spot of bad luck.
In events such as today’s $10,000 Omaha/8 World Championship there aren’t any “easy” tables. Some are more murderous than others, but walking around the floor I didn’t see a single table where I didn’t think, “Yipe!” Still, the table Phil Hellmuth currently sits at is sicker than most, and his seat is in an especially difficult spot. Take a look at the lineup and imagine tossing out a raise from early position:
To Phil’s right is James Van Alstyne, who’s currently 2nd in chips. To Phil’s left are, in order, John Hennigan (who I still say should’ve gotten an Oscar nomination for Lucky You), Alex Kravchenko, Barry Greenstein, and Daniel Negreanu. This is the stuff of poker nightmares. Sailors from the 17th century would’ve had an easier time rounding Cape Horn than Phil will have navigating that fearsome lineup.
It doesn’t help that Negreanu is at his antic best, playing every pot, bouncing around in his seat, chattering away non-stop, and wolfing down some vegetarian snack. Daniel does have some excuse for acting punchy–according to a recent Tweet he’s played for at least 15 hours the last seven days, including yesterday where he just missed winning his 5th bracelet (before racing over to his stack in this tournament). And he might not get to turn in early tonight, either, as he quadrupled up to nearly 80,000 just before the break. That’s a bit less than Phil, who sits with 99,000, and Annie Duke, who has 105,000 at the break.
The WSOP is here! Non-stop poker and partying for six weeks! Vegas is ripe with cash for the taking!!
And I’m on a plane from Paris to Madrid.
DAMN!!
Schedules can really be an asshole!!
Last year I played a whole bunch of events in June but had to leave town the day before the main event.
This year I am missing all of June and I get to Vegas in time to play day 1D of the main event. How’s this for a schedule: I play the Sonisphere Festival with Metallica in Hockenheim Germany on July 4th, drive to Frankfurt after the show. Fly Frankfurt – Dallas – Vegas on July 5th and should be checking into the Hard Rock around 6PM. I’ll head over to the Rio that night to buy-in for day 1D and then hopefully be able to sleep (jet-lag is an asshole too) and be 100% for the tourney. After I play days one and two I have to fly to Tulsa on July 9th for a show and then right back to Vegas the morning of the 10th for day 3. I’m sure you’re probably thinking, “Jesus Christ, that’s nuts, he’ll never make day 3” by now but I look at it as a sign that I am supposed to be there. Usually my schedule is so insane I have to miss a lot of stuff that I want to do in my life so the fact that it’s worked out that I can be there makes me feel good. It’s put a fire under my ass that I’m gonna ride to the final table. Oh yeah, I fly back to Europe on July 16!! The planets are in alignment!! Now I just need my hands to hold up.
I am currently in Europe on a promo tour for the new album, on a plane flying from Paris to Madrid.
I was just in London for two days and Paris for one doing interviews (29 so far) and the reaction to the record has been massive. Everyone is loving it. It feels really good to hear this kind of response after working so hard on Worship Music. I haven’t felt this kind of anticipation around a record release in forever.
I was in the studio in NYC up until two weeks ago and now the entire recording for the new Anthrax album Worship Music is finished. We were working non-stop, late night, early morning, 24/7 to make sure this record is going to be everything we’ve wanted it to be for the last two years. Dave Fortman (Slipknot, Mudvayne, Evanesence) started mixing and there are five songs finished so far; Earth On Hell, Bleed, New Noise, Burn The Past and Crawl. It’s sounding fucking great!!
Over the last week it’s been great to finally hear these songs with all the parts done. I can finally really feel what this album is about and it’s definitively Anthrax. There are so many little things on the record that bring me back to 1987 or 1993 and somehow it all works and sounds like 2009. All I can say is I’ve been listening to the mixes over and over and it’s so fucking cool and heavy and I can’t wait for all of you to hear this. OK, enough of me talking about myself, you my friends will make up your own minds!
I did get to take a break the other day and go see the Iron maiden movie Flight 666. The theater was packed and the atmosphere was more that of a concert than a movie.
The movie is amazing. The cameras follow the band on their World Slavery tour all around the globe with band, crew and all of their gear on the plane (Ed Force One!!) and Bruce flying it!! The movie looks and sounds great and the narrative is compelling. It’s really a great window into an amazing organization that we’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years (and hope to again!). If you’re a Maiden fan you have to see this. Actually, even if you’re not a fan of Maiden or Metal or even music you will like this. Maiden will
make you love them!!!
OK, I’m out. We’re starting our descent into Madrid.
I’ve been hitting the tables ($50 – $100 SnG’s) late night here in Europe. Maybe I’ll see you there. If not, I’ll see you in Vegas!!!
Cheers,
Scott
PS Good luck to Team UB this month. Take’em down to Chinatown!!!
PokerNews is producing a three-part show about the history of the World Series of Poker and today they released the first segment, which focuses on the origins of the World Series and the legends who played in those smoke-filled rooms. The video is full of archival footage of Binion’s Horseshoe and Vegas as it looked in the early Seventies, along with current interviews with Jack Binion, Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, and Nolan Dalla. It’s a must-see, and you can see it right here:
So that’s one week down for the World Series of Poker, six more to go. Approximately. It’s always hard to keep track of time in Las Vegas, especially so during the WSOP. I guess we’ll know to leave when they throw us out.
But it’s been another long busy day that’s turning into a long busy night. Steve Sung won his first bracelet tonight, as did Jason Mercier, and coming on the heels of wins by Vitaly Lunkin and Thang Luu (both of whom won their second bracelets) this Series might eclipse 2008 as the Year of the Pro. Longer structure and deeper stacks should translate into the best players having more time to display their skills. So far that’s been the case.
The Seven-Card Stud World Championship is now heads up, with poker legend Eric Drache battling Freddie Ellis for the bracelet (and if you don’t know who Eric Drache is, then shame on you). And four other tournaments are winnowing their fields one by one toward final tables of their own tomorrow or the day after. It’s been a long day, it’ll be a long night, and we’re gonna enjoy six more weeks of the same.
In a manner of speaking today will be the busiest day in World Series of Poker history. Today there will be SEVEN different tournaments running simultaneously, which I believe is unprecedented. Here’s a list of the events that will be in play today:
The final table of the $1,000 Stimulus No-Limit event. That should have played out yesterday but they only got down to the final table at 9pm. And they players decided to come back the next day rather than play through to 9am.
The final table of the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament.
The final table of the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud World Championship
Day 2 of the $2,500 No-Limit Deuce to Seven Draw tournament.
Day 2 of the $1,500 No-Limit event
Day 1 of the $1,500 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold-Em event.
Day 1 of the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold-Em/Omaha tournament.
Seven tournaments. Three final tables. And that doesn’t even include the scores of cash games going on and the usual roster of satellites. That’s a lot of balls to keep in the air during a long, long day here at the Rio.
One of the challenges of covering massive poker tournaments like today’s $1,500 No-Limit event is…finding out where the hell everyone is. As I walked the floors of the Amazon, Brasilia and Miranda Rooms earlier today I was on the lookout for Team UB players and anyone wearing our familiar black-and-gold logo. I found Tiffany Michelle and Liv Boeree (admittedly they’re easier to spot than most) but I saw when I saw a tweet from Brandon Cantu that said he had around 58,000 in chips. And as the highest count on the PokerNews page was around 31,000 it was quite possible that Brandon was the chip leader of the tournament.
So now all I had to do was track him down. Not so easy a task, as the $1,500 is still spread amongst three rooms. And when you’re walking up and down the aisles scanning nine faces in a nanosecond before turning your head and doing the same to the table across the way, you could walk past your own mother without it registering. But fortunately Brandon wasn’t too hard to pick out, not with what’s an impressive chip fortress sitting before him:
Still a long, long, long way to go, but building a big stack early on gives you a bludgeon to use against your opponents from the start. And that’s especially true for a super-aggressive player like Brandon. The other players at Cantu’s table might be in for a long night.
We’ll be playing poker deep into the night here at the Rio (most likely the action will last past the dawn). The $1,000 Stimulus No-Limit event has to crown it’s champion, the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud World Championship has to play down to a final table, and so does the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament. One player hoping to playing long after the Amazon Room empties out is UltimateBet’s Matt Graham, who is one of the final 50 players alive in the PLO event. He’s already locked up a $4,285 payday but with 45,000 in chips (and actually it’s more than that, as from my vantage point on Media Row it looks like he just won a big pot) Matt’s in position to make a run at his second WSOP bracelet.
UPDATE: According to PokerNews Matt has 145,000, which is considerably more than 45,000. Told you he scooped a big pot.
UPDATE 2: Matt was eliminated in 30th place when he held Ac-Ad-5s-2c to Greg Pappas’ Kc-Kd-10c-7d. The money went in after the Qs-7h-3d flop and Matt in the lead, but the turn brought the 10h and Matt couldn’t re-take the lead as the river brought the 4d. Matt takes home $5,797.
I somehow managed to miss getting pics of Tiffany Michelle and Liv Boeree before they were eliminated from the $1,000 Stimulus No-Limit event. This apparently displeased the masses–the reaction I got ranged from “WTF?” to “let’s burn him at the stake”. So once the $1,500 No-Limit tournament started I grabbed my camera and raced around the Rio searching them out. I don’t like the idea of some fan stuffing me in the trunk of his car and taking me for a ride out to coyote country.
Tiffany of course just posted about her early results and according to a recent tweet she’s up to 11,000 at the first break. Helped, in part, by cracking pocket Aces with her Queens. Hey, a little luck never hurt anyone. Except for the poor guy with the Aces…but he was lucky to have them in the first place. So it all balances out, right…?
Liv Boeree has already broken through at the 2009 World Series of Poker, cashing in the $1K Stimulus tournament for a $2,500 payday. And now she’s back at work in the Miranda Room, competing in the $1,500 No-Limit event as well:
The $1,500 NL field is spread amongst the Amazon, Brasilia and Miranda rooms, and mixed in here and there are the restarts for the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament, the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud World Championship, and the final fifty players vying for the $1,000 Stimulus tournament bracelet. It’s a zoo out there. And until everyone gets seated and situated I’m gonna stay on this side of the bars.
As you might expect there’s a big crowd watching the two remaining tables of World Champions battling it out. Phil Hellmuth is still in (as of a half-hour ago he had 10k, up from the starting stack of 1,000) and they’ll play until they get down to the final nine for the final table. There are 12 players left (Brad Daugherty, Scotty Nguyen and Chris Ferguson were just eliminated) so chances are they won’t play too deep into the night. I’ve been elbowing and kidney-punching my way around the rail snapping pictures and I thought now might be a good time to share a few of them.
I have to warn you, I like grainy black-and-white pics that have that old-time feel to them, so you’ll have to indulge me if I post a lot during the Series. Truth be told, a crappy color photo can be turned into a compelling B&W pic with a little creative adjustment. I’d like to think I salvaged something from a fairly blah photo here:
That’s Robert Varkonyi, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Huck Seed, Dan Harrington, Carlos Mortensen, and Chris Ferguson. A from-the-hip snapshot captures seven World Champions.
Doyle Brunson. He’s always been The Man, he’ll always be The Man.
The always-thirsty Prince of Poker, Scotty Nguyen.
And, of course, Phil Hellmuth, wearing his game face. I think I would too, if I was in serious contention for a 1970 Corvette Stingray. And the title of Champion of Champions.
I’ll be posting a lot more photos here on the blog throughout the Series, and if you want to see those that either didn’t make the cut or couldn’t be shoehorned into a post no matter how hard I tried, they’re posted at my Flickr page. Now I’m gonna grab my machete and see if I can clear a path to Dan Harrington.
