Friday, May 29, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
The marquee table today has been the one hosting Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Scotty Nguyen, David “The Dragon” Pham and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. And if you need any further explaination about why that’s so, jeez, just look at that lineup. Sick.
A crowd gathered along the rail around the table and it didn’t dissipate throughout the day. But it’s thinned a bit in the last few minutes, in part because of the lateness of the hour, and in part because Phil Hellmuth was just eliminated. After building his stack up to over a quarter million Phil lost a big confrontation with Alan Sass, who made a tough call with top pair after Phil set him all in on the river. That left Phil with just shy of 40,000 and it was a long hard fight from there.
A fight that came to an end when Phil Ivey raised and Hellmuth moved in for his last 90,000 from the small blind. Ivey called and his A-K dominated Hellmuth’s A-J. As PokerNews reported, Hellmuth said, “He raises my blind five times, then when I make a move he has a hand?”
Yes, Ivey had a hand and after the Kd-8h-6d flop he had a hammerlock on the pot. Phil H. got no help on the turn and river and just that fast his tournament came to an end. “Ivey so lucky against me, but I will have my turn vs him for sure!” Phil tweeted seconds after his bustout. And that’s some small consolation for the UB pros who didn’t have very good luck today–tomorrow is another day. Still 55 more chances to win a bracelet.
Tags: Phil Hellmuth, phil hellmuth $40K, phil hellmuth world series of poker, phil hellmuth wsop
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Thursday, May 28, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
OK, so where’s Phil?
That was the question circling the Amazon Room as the end of Level 3 grew nigh. Like I said in my last post, Phil always shows up late, but this was pushing it even for him. It was confirmed he’d registered, there was no danger of him missing the event, we even knew that he’d be sitting at Table 70, Seat 7. He just wasn’t here. There were rumors he was planning some outrageous Main Event-style grand entrance for the swarming ESPN cameras, and I staked out Table 70 like a rancid paparazzi stalking Lindsay Lohan.
They say a watched pot never boils, but my craning neck spotted a black baseball cap with a gold UltimateBet logo knifing through the crowd. Seconds later the ropes parted and there was Phil Hellmuth in the flesh, making his 2009 World Series of Poker debut:
There was some minor commotion as Phil sidled up to his seat. “Philly’s here!” crowed Scotty Nguyen and Scott Seiver said, “The man, the myth, the legend.” The mob clustered around the rail swelled as Phil showed off copies Deal Me In, his new book featuring interviews with a number of top professionals. One of whom, Phil Ivey, took a copy and immediately started riffing through pages, perhaps looking for his chapter:
As you can see, that’s a pretty loaded table…and that doesn’t even include David “The Dragon” Pham, barely visible two seats over from Ivey. There’s enough star power at that table to draw an army of railbirds and platoons of photographers, but I’ll bob and weave my way back there and see how Phil progresses…now that he’s actually playing in the tournament.
Tags: david pham, Phil Hellmuth, phil hellmuth $40K, phil hellmuth entrance, phil hellmuth wsop, phil ivey, Scotty Nguyen, ub, ub wsop, ultimatebet, ultimatebet world series of poker, ultimatebet wsop
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