Event #4 has Hit the Brakes and May be Extended for Another Day

Posted by pokerguru on June 3, 2009

It is surprising that it took this long with some of the fields that we have seen, but a tournament may finally be extended for an additional day. Event #4, the $1,000 Stimulus NL Hold’em Event still has 12 players remaining and tournament officials are going to offer the players the option to pay through tonight until a winner is decide or to come back at 2:00pm tomorrow to finish. As of this posting, the leader is Jeff Oakes with 2.4 million in chips.

Event #5, the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Event, is now down to 27 players. This was supposed to be the game that was going to be featured on the live stream, but they have already stated that they will change the game to the NL Event #4 if that gets extended. The current leader is Jason Mercier with 262,000 in chips.

Event #6, The $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship, is the third event that is being played down to f final table tonight. There are still 48 players remaining from the 142 man field and play in this one has been dragging for both days. Greg Mueller has a huge chip lead at 206,000. The next closest player is Hoyt Corkins with 148,000. Todd Brunson is still on the leader board, but he is slowly slipping. However, the bulk of the chips in play are sitting in front of the top 8 players so anyone on the front page is still very much in this to make it to the final table.

Two events started today, the $1,500 NL Hold’em event and the always fun $2,500 Deuce to Seven Lowball No Limit tournament. The leader board in the NL Hold’em event is once again littered with names that most people will not recognize. The big name pros are having an extremely hard time in the NL Hold’em events as every one of them has a huge target on their head. With the fields being so large, it is hard to imagine that we are going to see any major pros hoisting a NL bracelet.

The Deuce to Seven Lowball event seems like it is the place to be for a good time tonight. The sheer nature of the game lends itself to a fun time and the pros are eating it up. Just about every major player in the game has signed up for this one. If you are looking for a pro to take this one down, the money would have to be on Ivey or Negreanu. Both players are among the best in the world at this off the wall game and the amateurs are going to have a hard time keeping up with these two.

With all of the events going on, there are quite a few players that have been multi-tabling. It is not something that you see very often, but everyone is looking for a bracelet and players like Negreanu seem to be entered in every event on the board. The tournament staff is doing an incredible job of keeping everything moving and all of the players straight. Tomorrow could be pure insanity though with 3 final tables going and a total of 7 tournaments in all. Should be a fun day!

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Filed Under: WSOP

Tags: 7 Card Stud World Championship, Ivey, Jason Mercier, Jeff Oakes, Negreanu, NL Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, Seven Lowball No Limit, Stud Poker, Todd Brunson

Is That Chris Moneymaker at the Top of the Leaderboard?

Posted by Dan on May 29, 2009

The elimination list for Event #2 at the WSOP, the $40,000 40th Annual NL Hold’em Event, looks like a who’s who in poker. Hellmuth, Dwan, Minieri, Juanda, Negreanu, Chan, Duke, Greenstein, Ferguson, Elezra, Lindgren, Harmon, Deeb, Laak and Nguyen are all out. However, there are still some major players left in this field and it still looks very good for a notable pro to take this one down.

Hellmuth, as always, was one of the more entertaining eliminations. Ivey had been bullying him all day long and Hellmuth was just waiting for an opportunity to fight back. He finally drew a hand, AJh, and made a move on an Ivey raise and looked across the table at AK. Phil headed to the rail and was ranting the entire time.

Mike “The Mouth” Matusow has been noticeably quiet all day long as the cards have just not been coming his way. He has managed to stay alive though and while he is short stacked at $87,000, if the cards change, you would have to think that he is going to be have to be dealt with.

Big Papa has been hanging tough the entire day. While his stack has been up and down, he seems to be in true form and licking his chops at the $1.8 million dollar payday that goes to the winner. He will start day two at $244,000 in chips.

However, the story of the day has to be that Chris Moneymaker has not only made it past day one, but he is sitting in second place overall with $805,000 in chips. He has made some big calls, most notably against Ferguson, and may finally breakthrough in a major WSOP tournament for the first time since his WSOP win in 2003.

He has been about as big a bust as any World Series winner in the past. Literally being the one responsible for the current day poker boom, he has not had a major cash since the $2,500,000 payday 6 years ago. You often see him getting railed early on in day one, but not this time. He is still playing typical Moneymaker poker, but his cards are holding and the questionable calls are paying off.

The true test will come as this field narrows down. He is not afraid to call with any kicker, he makes huge bluffs and will chase down just about any hand. He is just as likely to go on a huge run as he is to go broke in the first fifteen minutes of the second day. However, if he starts to get cards, he will be dangerous because of the action that he gets when he is in a hand.

In addition to Day 2 of the 40th Annual NL Hold’em Event, the Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better $1,500 tournament starts today. This is a 3 day event and the players will start off with $4,500 in chips. Levels in both tournaments go for 60 minutes and the action kicks off at 12 noon PST.