June 3rd marked the fifth day of action at the 2008 WSOP. If you thought yesterday report was chaotic you haven’t seen anything yet as today five tournaments were played simultaneously. Event 2 say 18 players return for the final day and in the late night hours the second 2008 WSOP bracelet was awarded. Meanwhile events 3 and 4 kicked off their day twos today where the final table participants have been determined and events 5 and 6 got their starts. We’ll cover all today’s WSOP action one tournament at a time in this report.

WSOP Event #2 $1500 No Limit Holdem Day 3

Event #2 of the 2008 WSOP had already set a record for most entrants in a preliminary event, most players to return to day 2 in a preliminary event and has now set the record for the most players to return for a day 3. Originally day two was scheduled to be played down to 9 players, but when the day which started at 2PM ran to 6AM the following morning and eighteen players were still left, they decided to break and return today at 1:30PM to play out the final two tables.

It did not take long for day three to suffer its first casualty as on just the second hand Elia Ahmadian was eliminated after he pushed all in from the SB with 6c 8s and was insta-called by Theo Tran who had pocket Kings. Shortly later Brandon Blake would be eliminated after having the misfortune having the lower end of a set-over-set situation. Blake received $30,569 for his 17th place finish as did Frank Sinopoli who put his short stack all in drawing to a higher flush than his opponents already completed flush, the turn and river blanks and he was out in 16th place.

Chris Ferguson continued the roller coaster ride he was earlier in the tournament, most certainly being the player who had his tournament life on the line the most during this record field sized event. He managed to double up a few times in the first couple hours. Through out the event it every time he was short stacked, he managed to find Jesus like magic, doubling up time and time again.

The tournaments remaining 15 players noticeably showed signs exhaustion and this was expected considering their marathon 16 hour session followed by just a 7.5 hour break before this day started. It did not take very long for us to get down to the final table and the next four eliminations came rather quickly.

Three way all in

Matthew Kearney raised to 60K from UTG and next to act Jeff Wiedenhoeft pushed his short stack of 130K called, and Aaron Coulthard,who had them both covered also announced himself all in to which Matthew Kearney.

Kearney: Kd- Qh
Wiedenhoeft: Kh 10h
Coulthard: Ac Jh

The board ran: Kc Td 2d Qd 10c

Wiedenhoeft’s full house earned him the triple up, Coulthard won the side pot and Kearney was eliminated in 15th place receiving $41,295.

Erik Hicks was eliminated when he got his money all in good preflop with As 9c against Ks 8h but would be outdrawn when a king fell on the turn. The next player eliminated was Josh Engerdahl who got his money in preflop with Ace Jack but was unable to get lucky against Aaron Coulthard’s Ace Queen. Both players eliminated received $41,295 for their performances.

One of the best known players in the field Minh Nguyen was eliminated in 12th place when he was unable to catch an Ace. He had run Ace Queen against James Akenhead’s pocket Queens. Mihn received $52,021 for his twelfth place finish.

With eleven players left we needed just two more elimination for the final table to be reached, at this time the chip counts were:

James Akenhead - 1,770,000
Aaron Coulthard 1,700,000
Melvin Jones 1,620,000
Mike Ngo - 1,300,000
Theo Tran - 1,130,000
Jeff Wiedenhoeft - 1,060,000
Chris Ferguson - 880,000
Perry Friedman - 757,000
David Bach - 628,000
Joe Rutledge - 552,000
Grant Hinkle - 360,000

Perry Friedman, another well known player, would be the next eliminated. Theo Tran opened the pot to 90K from the cutoff and Friedman went into the tank for a moment before declaring himself all in. Tran snap called and turned over Kd Kc and Friedman visually showing disappointed turned over Qd Jd. When the flop came Jh 5d 2s Friedman shouted Jack! Jack! to the Poker God(s) but it would not be. He received $52,021 for his finish.

With just ten players left all of them could smell the final table and after such a marathon like tournament no one wanted to risk going out on the final table bubble. Finally it was Jeff Wiedenhoeft who would need to settle for tenth place and $52.021.

Players took a ten minute break and headed over to the Milwaukee’s Best Light final table area where the championship would be decided. The eventual tournament champion and 2nd bracelet winner of the 2008 World Series of Poker was Grant Hinkle who won with one of the most interesting final hands in WSOP history. Complete final table coverage can be found in our 2008 WSOP Event #2 Final Table Recap.

2008 WSOP Event #3 $1500 Pot Limit Hold’em Day Two Recap

713 players started this and 63 returned today, all already in the money. The big names in the returning field included 63 are David Singer (3rd with 124K chips), and Tom McEvoy (34th with 23K chips) with other recognizable named being Eugene Todd (24th place with 37K chips), David Levi (27th place with 34K chips), Bobby Law (5th with $85.5K), Jacobo Fernandez ( 6th 69K), Al Barbieri AKA “Sugar Bear” (8th 63.5K chips) and recent APT final table player David Paul Steicke. Leading the pack with 1.47 million was Robert Workman, followed by Philip Yeh in second with 1.43 million.

This tournament which was fast paced all day yesterday reaching the money in record time was played noticeably slower today. The major story of the early hours was Robert Workman going from first to worst. The day one chip leader had lost several key pots early on and was finally finished off when David Levi with Ace Queen caught an Ace on the flop to beat out Robert Workman’s pocket kings. Robert Workman received just a $3,309 WSOP Event 3 payday which was obviously disappointing, considering his impressive day one accomplishments.

Tom McEvoy was short stacked most of the day but managed to stick around long enough to take 25th place. He received $5,547 for his two day performance.
David Singer had an excellent start and with 22 players left had the chip lead and was the first player to eclipse the 250K chip mark.

One of the days sickest beats occurred on a hand that played out as follows:

Scott Seiver UTG opens the pot to 10K, and Brent Bibby made the call from mid position.

Flop: 2h 9d 10c

Seiver first to act bets 15,000 and Bibby raises to 30K to which Seiver 3 bets to 75K and Bibby four bets all-in. Call!

Seiver: 2d 2s for set of deuces
Bibby: 9s 9c for set of nines.

We said this beat was sick, and why set over set is certainly a bad beat and enough to make any player on the short end sick, this one was much sicker. The turn card was the case two giving Scott Seiver quads which sent Bibby home in Brent Bibby home in 21st place, he received $5,547.

Scott Seiver had ran well and when 14 players remained these were the top 5 chip counts:

Scott Seiver — 385,000
Joe Tehan — 214,000
Robert Lipkin — 169,000
David Singer — 155,000
Russell Harriman — 152,000

Seiver would not hang on to the chip lead long as he had lost a few pots and then managed to drop down to just 135K when he pushed back and forth with Joe Tehan who would become the chip leader when his QQ bested Seiver’s 66. He would then bust in 13th when he ran his As9s against Russell Harriman Ad 10h. Scott Seiver’s complete meltdown was even worst that Robert Workman who had earlier started the day as the chip leader and then went out rather quickly.

David Singer found himself in four pots where he would lose chips without seeing a flop. Each time he had raised or called a bet only to fold preflop to another raise.

Eventually we reached the nice players signifying the day had ended. Here are the chip counts heading into tomorrow’s Event #3 final table.

Joe Tehan — 458,000
Jacobo Fernandez — 428,000
Robert Lipkin — 305,000
Al Barbieri — 271,000
Russell Harriman — 206,000
Gregory Alston — 179,000
Zachary King — 139,000
David Singer — 83,000
Glen Bean — 75,000

2008 Event #4 $5,000 Mixed Holdem Day 2 coverage

91 players managed to survive day one of this and today we would play till the final was determined. This event truly contained the “who is who” of poker with many of the top high stake poker stars having turned out to play the event. It would take hours for us to cover each hand involving noteworthy players so we’ll focus more so on the eliminations and key hands played in this report.

Big name pros hitting the rail early included Ralph Perry, Eugene Katchalov, Anna Wroblewski, Bob “scsuhockey10″ Lauria, in that specific order and in no specific order Alex Kravchenko, Barry Shulman, Bill Chen, , Jeff Shulman, Jerrod Ankenman, Marcel Luske, Michael Binger were other noteworthy players finishing outside the money on day two.

The most interesting early hand of the day involved, aces versus kings versus queens (who said “this only happens online?”). No king or queen hit the board, nor were there any running flush or straight cards so Danny Wong tripled up with aces, Isaac Haxton took the side pot with kings and Adam Westell was sent to rail.

Hoyt Corkins and Gavin Griffin collided three times over a period of a few hands. The first time Corkins successfully raced pocket nines against Griffin’s King Queen but on the very next hand he would double up Griffin. On this hand, after the turn card was dealt the board read Q J J 7, Corkins had pocket 7’s for a full house but Griffin held Q J and doubled up courtesy of Corkins who was left short stacked. A few hands later Corkins would be eliminated when he ran King Queen against Griffin’s pocket aces.
Antonio Esfandiari was sent home out of the money by his close friend Phil Laak. The two were all in preflop and Laak had pocket aces and Esfandiari Ace Queen

As the money was getting a bit closer the next note worthy pros to bust included Maria Ho , Hasan Habib, David Benyamine Jimmy “Gobboboy Fricke and Ted Forrest,.

Patrick Antonius took the chop lead a couple hours into the day when he was the first player able to eclipse the 200K in chip mark.

At this point there were 60 or so players left.

Gavin Griffin and David Williams were in a three way pot which had a flop of 8d 10h 3s. Griffin checked, Williams bet 5,000 the 3rd player got out of the way and Griffin bumped it to 15K to which Williams responded with a call. The turn was a 4c and Griffin lead for 40K and after thinking for a while Williams moved all in and Griffin called. Williams showed pocket tens for a set and Griffin mucked his cards, not even waiting for the river to be dealt and was eliminated. David Williams had 220K chips when this hand was completed.

Jon “PearlJammer” Turner had started the day in first place but found himself cold decked most of the day. He dropped down to 68K chips (started with over 100K) when he doubled up Andy Black. This pot was aces and tens vs aces and eights (perhaps PearlJammer hadn’t heard before that ace and eight is a dead mans hand?).

The next big name players eliminated were Jay “Krantz” Rosenkrantz, Josh Arieh, David Grey and Danny Wong.

Justin Bonomo got himself to 175K chips in hand that burst the money bubble. The bubble boy of event 4 of the 2008 WSOP is…. Nick Mao.

Finishing in 36th through 28th good for a $10,922 payday was JC Alvarado, George Abdallah, Phil Tom, Raphael Zimmerman, Mori Eskandani, Barry Shulman, Matthew Graham, Andy Black, and Matt Sterling
Jordan Smith sent Patrik Antonius, who had become short stacked home in 27th place when Antonius moved all in with QJ and was called by A6. Antonius added $12,438 to his 2008 WSOP earnings which already included $124,000 he won in Event #1.

Finishing 26th through 19th also receiving $12, 438 was Michael Craig, Eric Cloutier, Phil Laak, Ariel Schneller, Michael McKenna, Tad Jurgens, Pete de Best and Johnny Neckar.

Event 4 was now down to 18 players and seats where redrawn to divide players into two tables. It did not take much longer to eliminate the days final nine players. The first to go was Robert Williamson III who 3 bet all in with AK and was called by Pat Pezzin who held QJ suited. The flop came K 10 9 flopping Pezzin the nut straight and unable to improve Williamson was eliminated in 18th place receiving $15,604.

Jordon smith was eliminated in 17th place ($15,604) with A T against pocket tens and David Olson and 16th ($15,604) and Andy Bloch 15th ($19,505) where both eliminated on the same courtesy of Roland De Wolfe. Bloch had lost most of his chips to David Williams a few hands earlier and Olsen was also short stacked. De Wolfe had Ac 2c, Bloch 9c 8h and Olson Kd Qc. The board ran As 6d 8d Qs and 4d.

Anh van Nguyen was eliminated in 14th ($19,505) when he pushed all in preflop with KQ and was called by Andrew Rob who held AT. Shortly after this Jason Dewitt ($19,505) was eliminated when David Rheem with AK caught a King on the river to send Dewitt the rail in 13th place. This gave David Rheem a massive chip lead with 750K chips.

Ben Zamani was eliminated in 12th ($23,406) when his pocket kings were cracked by David Rheem turned straight. He was not all in until the river.

Chau Giang lost a big pot to Justin Bonomo a few hands before he was eventually eliminated by Andrew Robl. On this hand Giang hand K9 and Robi 8 7. The board was 4 6 Q 9 T and Giang received $23,406 for his finish.

Ron Kevin Haeri became the Event #4 final table bubble boy when his pocket Ace Queen was unable to outrace David William’s pocket nines. Ron Kevin Haeri received $23,406 for his tenth place finish.

Here are the days final chip counts:

David “Chino” Rheem 885,000
David Williams 678,500
Justin Bonomo 517,500
Erick Lindgren 345,000
Howard Lederer 324,500
Roland de Wolfe 194,000
Andrew Robl 162,000
Isaac Haxton 115,500
Pat Pezzin 108,500

The final table will begin tomorrow at 3PM

2008 WSOP Event #5 $1,000 NLHE w/ Rebuys Day One Coverage

At 1:00 o’clock tournament director Jack Effel announced “Shuffle Up and Deal” and Event #5 No Limit Texas Hold’em with Re-buys began. Even though the initial buy-in is small in comparison to the other WSOP events; re-buy tournaments tend to be most fitting for the players with deep pocket bankrolls. Just ask Daniel Negreanu who re-bought into a PLO event last year over 25 times.

As one would expect the biggest names entered Event #5, some recognizable names include JohnnyBax, Bart Hanson, Chad Brown, Greg Raymer, Sorel Mizzi, Phil Hellmuth, T.J. Cloutier, Johnny Chan, Erick Lindgren, Jeff Lisandro, Mike Matusow, Phil Ivey, Lee Watkinson and the list goes on.

The play on many of the tables was even crazier than expected. On Sorel Mizzi’s table there is an all-in nearly every hand, which usually included a re-buy shortly after. For an idea of how crazy the action is online poker pro Chad “lilholdem954” Batista has $10,000 in casino chips on the table waiting for when it’s time to reload.

Daniel Negreanu reported in his blog that he would be satisfied if he was able to only spend $8,000 worth of re-buys. One of his rebuys came after losing with A4 on a K-10-4 flop and was beat by Q10. Shortly after re-buying: Daniel out flopped Johnnybax when the two of them got all of their chips in with AJ (Bax) and K5 (Daniel). Negreanu was able to hit a King and JohnnyBax eagerly yelled “Re-buy!”

Mike Matusow came to the event 20 minutes late and found himself re-buying very quickly after a player from the cutoff made a large raise and Matusow then showed all in. He was called quickly and the cutoff showed pocket eights and was up against Mike’s AJ. He failed to improve and needed to re-buy.

Nearly an hour into play around 2:00PM the Dealer at Sorel Mizzi, Mar Vos and Steve Sung’s table ran out of re-buy chips. This was quite entertaining as the floor staff had to bring a tray of ammunition for the players.

Around the same time on Table 19 Orange there was a four player all-in and two hands after that there was a six player all-in preflop! The following hand there was another crazy five way all-in! After the five player all-in one of the knocked out players failed to re-buy and said “That’s enough.”

The six way all-in hole cards were 8c5s, 6c3h, 9c8s, 7d5d, AsKd, and 5h3c. The board came 6d-3c-Jh-Qs-7h. The 8-5 was held by Ben Sabrin who made a straight and collected 20,000 in chips.

With only 20 minutes left to re-buy Brandon Cantu continues to shove all in nearly every hand. After his forth consecutive all in. an opponent went into the tank and was debating on whether he should call or not. Chantu was getting restless and said, “If you’re trying to get a read on me, I’ve been shoving in every hand.”

The opponent finally called and flipped over QcKh and Cantu showed JsKd. The flop came 8cJd9s and the turn brought a 10 making a straight. Cantu was forced to re-buy and finally started to calm down.

When the rebuy period ended, players took a one hour lunch break..

On the table where the six way all-in took place with Sorel Mizzi, Mark Vos and Steve Sung; it was reported that there have been a total of 58 re-buys and 23 of them was made by Sung.
During level 5, rebuy are over at this point its 6:25 PM when the following hand tookd place.
Gavin Smith Eliminated Eli Elezra. The board was 3h-9h-10d when the chips went in. Elezra showed Qh10h while Gavin flipped over KdJs and the turn brought a Queen of clubs giving Eli two pair and Gavin the nut straight. Elezra failed to improve and pumped Gavin’s stack to over 32,000.

Phil Hellmuth got into an interesting hand when both Phil and another player both checked a Jh-Jd-8d flop. When the turn brought a 9 of diamonds Hellmuth lead out 2,500 and his opponent called. The river was a Ace of hearts and Phil lead out again for 5,000 and his opponent called. His opponent flipped up 8-8 for 8’s full of Jacks and Hellmuth showed pocket jacks for quads.

After a 90 minute dinner break and an increase of blinds to round 7 (300/600 75 ante) Mike Matusow found himself all-in with A5 hearts against Chris Moore’s 89 off suit. Moore flooped an eight and Matusow failed to catch up and was sent home at 9:30 Vegas time.

At this time the tournament director announced the details of the tournament. There were 766 entrants with 2,258 re-buys. The total prize pool is an outstanding $2,894,094.

Phil Ivey joined Daniel Negreanu’s table and took a big pot shortly after. Daniel raised to 2,300 and received two calls one from Ivey and another from Cody Slaubaugh. The flop came 10h8s6d and it was checked around. An ace of clubs turned and Ivey bet out 7,500 and Cody re-raised. Negreanu was the monkey in the middle and decided to fold and then Ivey moved all in, Slaubaugh called. Ivey quickly flipped over Ah8h and Cody showed AK. Cody failed to improve on the turn and Ivey now has a big stack of 57,000.

Around 10:30 Daniel Negreanu found himself sitting with 3-3 after he raised to 900 and Cody Slaubaugh moved all in for 11,400. Daniel said, “I hate making these types of calls,” and threw his chips in. Cody showed Ah10h and failed to improve and Negreanu sits with an stack just short of 100,000.

After the 10th level of play day 1 officially ended. There are just over 100 players remaining and the tournament will continue to play at 2pm tomorrow. Here are the top 10 chip leaders:

Phil Ivey 175,500
Amit Makhija 161,100
Jeff Williams 145,700
Marco Johnson 132,600
Jesse Chinni 129,000
John Hoang 125,400
Zachary Clark 122,000
Scott Dorin 117,300
Alan Sass 111,800
Anirudh Seth 103,400

2008 WSOP Event #6 $1,500 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Day 1 Coverage

At 5:00 PM Event #6 $1,500 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better tournament began. This is the first split and Omaha event for this year’s WSOP. Last years champ Alex Karvchenko is in attendance along with 832 other players fighting for the $1,249,500 prize pool. Last year he made history winning $228,446 in this event. 81 players will be paid and first place will take a bracelet and $243,356.

It was questionable on how many big names would end up playing this event with the other events being played today, but so far the turnout is pretty good. Some recognizable names include: David Sklansky, Josh Arieh, Amarillo Slim, Scott Clements, Allen Kessler, Tom Schneider, Shannon Elizabeth, Jean-Robert Bellande, Scotty Nguyen, Men Nguyen, Gabe Kaplan and Robert Mizrachi,

About one hour into the event Kaplan took down one of the biggest pots of the tournament so far with Jh-8h-3c-4c and the board came JcJsKc4h2s. He was able to scoop the pot against two other players who saw the river. Apparently, Kaplan was playing nearly every hand and when he found out the blinds had increased he said, “OK, the blinds are going up. I gotta play tighter.”

Several noteworthy players clashed in this event. Gabe Kaplan and Berry Johntson dueled often early and so far Johnston had been getting the best of it. Erik Seidel and Jimmy ‘gobboboy’ Fricke were the other two pro’s jabbing at each other and so far the youngster gobboboy is getting the best of old man (wink).Erik Seidel.

Just after the 6th round started with blinds at 150/300 Phil Ivey decided to show up. He is also currently still playing the $1,000 re-buy, which was on break when he showed up at the Omaha event. When he took his seat he had only 600 in chips left. About 20 minutes after he took his seat he was elimited after seeing a board of 3d-7s-3s-Kc-Qc. Ivey managed to get all his chips in but lost when an opponent showed Ac-2c-7h-kh for two pair for a scoop.

At 8:30 Shannon Elizabeth was eliminated while holding Kh-Jh-Jd-4c and put her last 1,000 chips in on a board of Jc-5h-5d-5s-4s. Her opponent held a 5 for quads and the beautiful poker babe was sent to the rail.

Day one ended with 205 players remaining with the chip leader holding 39,200 in chips. Play will resume at 3 PM in the Amazon room and will most likely be played down to the final table.

James van Alstyne 39,200
Richard Ashby 38,800
Ben Tang 32,000
James Hinton 30,800
Bryan Devonshire 29,100
Carl Restifo 27,600
Rick Burke 26,200
Jimmy Fricke 25,700
Roland Isra 25,700
Yuebin Guo 25,100

Join us again tomorrow for June 4, 2008 WSOP coverage.

Source Credit: Poker News 2008 WSOP coverage was used for chip counts and/or hand references.