Saturday, June 20, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
I spent about 90 minutes watching the final table of the $10,000 Stud/8 World Championship, in part because Doyle Brunson was at that final table and he had a chance to tie Phil Hellmuth for most WSOP bracelets. In those ninety minutes not one player was eliminated and I heard the phrase “let’s chop it up” about 137 times, so I withdrew to download some photos. Doyle was actually eliminated in seventh place just a few minutes ago, so he won’t be tying Phil’s record tonight.
And who knows how long eleven bracelets will be the record, because even as we speak Phil is deep in the $2,000 Limit Hold-Em event. They’re just about on the money bubble, and should Phil survive till it bursts it would give him his his record 72nd WSOP cash, and from reading his most recent tweets he’s been all over the place, nearly felted, then winning several huge pots in a row to rebuild his stack. According to the most recent PokerNews’ tally Phil has around 100,000 and is high on the leaderboard, so maybe it’s his turn to make a final table and make a run at the bracelet. Johnny Chan made the semi-finals of the $10K Heads-Up event last week, Doyle made a final table today, will Phil find himself under the bright lights tomorrow evening? A long way to go before we know the answer to that question.
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Phil Hellmuth just cashed for the 71st time at the World Series of Poker–but it’s been an up-and-down day. The big dip came right before the money bubble burst, as Phil doubled up Alex Kravchenko when Phil ran pocket Queens into Kravchenko’s pocket Aces. Losing that hand left Phil with just 30,000, but just a few minutes later we began hand-for-hand play and Phil survived the next bustout to record cash #71.
He then moved from survive to thrive when he won a big pot on the first hand after play resumed. After Scott Dorch limped and the Marcel Vonk called in the small blind called Phil checked his option in the big blind. The flop came Qs-7s-3h, Vonk and Hellmuth checked, and Dorch bet 2,500. Vonk called and then Phil said, “I was gonna smooth call, now I gotta raise it up.” He popped it to 12,000, Dorch folded and Vonk thought a bit before announcing he was all-in. Phil snap-called and turned over Kd-Qd for top pair to Vonk’s As-Js and nut flush draw. The Jh on the river gave Vonk two more outs but the river brought the 4h, which sent Vonk to the rail and a big pile of chips to Phil to assimilate into his stack.
That boosted Phil stack back up to 65,000, but as I returned to write up that hand PokerNews reported that Phil lost a big confrontation with Benjamin Scholl that sent him back down to 25,000. So it looks like it’s gonna be one of those roller-coaster days, though hopefully a long one.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, most wsop cashes, Phil Hellmuth, record for most wsop cashes, world series of poker, WSOP
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Friday, June 5, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
The bubble just burst in the $2,000 No-Limit Hold-Em tournament, and one of those who made the money was one Phillip Hellmuth, Jr., who cashed for the 70th time at the World Series of Poker. That extends his own record for cashes; next on the agenda would be his 42nd final table, and beyond that his 12th bracelet–all also WSOP records.
But right on Phil’s heels is T.J. Cloutier, who also cashed today and now sits in 4th place. He’s also second to Phil in career WSOP final tables. And he happens to be sitting directly to Phil’s right at the moment:
There was a big hand where T.J. folded pocket Jacks and Phil folded pocket nines (so they said) after a player holding pocket eights made a big re-raise to push them off their hands. That player blundered into the pocket Aces of the player in the big blind, and neither T.J. nor Phil was crazy about that play (actually it was T.J. who was the far more animated). “That was sick,” Phil said, “people think you’re stealing with Jacks…this table scares me.”
That got T.J. in a storytelling mood–he talked about a four-handed game where three players flopped sets and the fourth flopped the nut flush draw. Then he talked about a couple who got decapitated in the parking lot of the Bicycle Club in the early 1990’s. Uhh…I liked the first story better.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, most overall wsop cashes, most wsop cashes, Phil Hellmuth, phil hellmuth wsop cashes, phil hellmuth wsop record cashes, record wsop cashes, t.j. cloutier, world series of poker, WSOP
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