blonde poker forum

Here will begin our live coverage of the $5k short-handed, an event eagerly anticipated by many players from the UK and the global community of the internet...should be a change of pace (for the quicker) so the whole team will be here reporting from 12pm (8pm UK time) as the action gets underway.

Playing in this will be a host of the names already having dipped a toe in the World Series, and of course Paul Foltyn who final tabled the short-handed event last year.  We guess also likely to attend are Ali Masterman, Karl Mahrenholz (fresh from chopping the Bellagio $1k last night), Praz Bansi, Devilfish, and a host of others who can't resist the combination of a format they've been perfecting online and the large field/decent buy-in.  Post here if you're playing/know anyone who is that you'd like us to keep an eye on and we'll do our best.  Good luck to all giving it a shot.

For the non-interactive, text only version of the live update, click:  http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=25111.0 (http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=25111.0)

gl pablooooooooo

Come on Pablo! Bring it back!

good luck to jeff bufenbarger and jp kelly both playing this today

Ok, here's how today is going to work. Sadly this crossover of events coincided with us changing our hotel from the Gold Coast back to the Orleans.

So, I'm here and will be covering the $5,000 six-handed event, then when Jen and Snoopy arrive shortly. They'll take over that and I'll be watching the HORSE Final and reporting on the other thread which starts at 2pm, (10pm UK)

Therefore, start opening up a few tabs! :D

This event is proving massively popular. So much so that people are still registering now. I've been trying to mark particular 'hotspots' with some photos.

Board:

Jc 3c 6d

Chips flying in...

MB1:

Jd 6s

MB2:

6h 6c

Turn:

8s

River:

Js

Our first mateyboy squared moment of the WSOP 2007...

cool..I'll be watching this in a few hours then and don't have to bother with the Horse event ;)

This should be a great event...it's the one I was hoping to play as, even with shitty chips you can still get involved plenty :) Have fun Homer!

BTW..is Aces playing this?

Chip Reese and Barny Boatman.

Bill Chen, Elky (who must be incredibly excited about the fact there's a new Starcraft game coming out) and Jeff Buffenbarger.

Joe Hachem in his Stars denim.

Devilfish and Howard Lederer.

Henning Granstad (in Seat 1) and Ross Boatman (in Seat 3)

Joe Beevers and Jonas 'mini-Laak' Molander (who chopped one of the big Bellagio comps a couple of days ago with Iwan Jones for $60k each)

Jennifer Harman and Phil 'Regular-Laak' Laak

EPT Monte Carlo Champion Gavin Griffin. Any hair-raising comments about his...err...red T-shirt?

good look to gourlay if you see him flop,  hechopped the sat this morn

El Blondie is sitted opposite Andy Black and with the Scandie guy to his right, who I think looks like Josh Charles in Dead Poets' Society.

Chad Brown, Johnny Lodden and Sammy Farha. Now THAT's the table I want to watch.

Shaniac, Pascal Perrault and Donnacha O'Dea.

Coooeeee, we've arrived.  :hello:

Phew let the norkage begin..................oh and if you get time you could do some updates on the tournament.

More photos.

Foxy (in shorts! drinking water!)

Scotty Nguyen folds after Johnny Chan check/raised his 500 bet to 2100 on an 8s 7d 4c 8c board.

Antonio Estfandari, not in UB gear, but Tao, which I think is a Vegas nightclub.

Tony Cascarino and Jamie Gold.

Roland does his statue impersonation.

Pab isn't in his seat where I spotted him earlier and I've not been able to locate him since. Elsewhere I'm not sure JP has managed to get a seat yet, but the room is so huge we could easily have missed him.

The number of entrants for this event is reckoned to be close to 800.

Piccies galore!  ;sark;

Kirk Morrison, Jeff Lisandro & Daniel Alaei

The short-handed nature of this event has meant that it looks like a much larger field as so very many tables are needed to start it off - the giant Amazon room is heaving, and tables are breaking as fast as they are forming.  Here are a couple of sets of tablemates:

Jennifer Harman
Phil Laak
Andreas Hagen

Joe Beevers
Jonas Molander (who just so happened to win his first tournament upon arriving in Vegas at the Bellagio, chopping with Iwan Jones for over $60k and going on to win heads up for the $25k WPT seat... nice start)

William Thorsson
Steve Zolotow
Mark Vos

And these two:

Jamie Gold, Stephen Pearce & Steve Wong

David Pham, Thomas Middelthon & Erik Friberg

Mark Seif & Jason Lester

Here's Dusk Til Dawn's Kevin O'Connell (there are a few DTD hats dotted around the room - also spotted DC and Mikka: will keep an eye on them).  He was just involved in a threeway pot, betting out 800 on the 9h 9s Kh flop.  The button raised to 2,600 and the third player who'd initially checked folded.  This left O'Connell to resignedly pass his Jh Jc face up... his chips now 6,450.

Jeff Kimber and Patrick Antonius

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumberrrrrrrrrrtooooooooooooooooooo

Vicky Coren has scared everyone from her table already.

Mark Goodwin and a Mini-Laak

Phil Hellmuth, late as ever. Greeted by the dealer who sounded like a teacher, when she said, "Good morning Phillip."

Age Spets' awesomely cool Greek Soldier card protector.

chip count on joey lovelady please

Henning Granstad was facing a chunky 4k bet on the turn of 2d Jc 3s Qh board, he passed his Ad Jd face up and was shown 3h 3d in return.

El Blondie just took a pot down, he betting the river of a 6h 3s Qs 2c 6s board against two opponents, getting one caller and showing the Js Ts to put him back over the 10k starting stack.

Isn't that always the way, just as I pop back into the cardroom in search of hands and fascinating anecdotes, they all disperse for their 20 minute break.

However, whilst they were leaving, I did catch David Daneshgar virtually all-in on Qh 9h 2d board, his 9c 9s miles ahead of his opponent's in-need-of-runners Qd 4d.

But the runners failed to arrive and the popular young American doubles up to around 10k.

(http://www.blondepoker.com/blondepedia/images/photos/photo_1869.jpg)

The HORSE final is about to start over at http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=25109.0

Cool, I'm off to follow the updates. Oh no, hold on...

No sign of Praz or Karl?

No, but we've still not scouted the full tournament, plus there were many alternates - they could have been one of those.

They were umming and ahing about playing a couple nights ago - In Karl's case I thought that actually translated to, "Yes of course, I just chopped the $1k threehanded, how can I not spend some of it on the $5k?" but they might have just slept in.

Beagle news from the break...

Jeff Kimber is up to 21k after, in his own words, "muppetting some guy with A-Q vs. A-K".

It's not as bad it sounds though (maybe...) - Jeff raised it up to 300, a serial raiser made it 1,100 and Jeff pushed for his opponent's remaining 4.

Ace high flop, runner runner heart. Ouch - if you're gonna muppet your opponent, muppet them in style.

Jeff also added, "Patrick Antonius just sat next down to me, I can't think of anyone else I'd want to see less."

Thanks Jen, a distinct possiblity on some sort of lateness!

joey lovelady still in? chips count if possible?

is Chris Moorman Playing today?

Joey has 10500 at last check according to Benno

ta

A few chippy counts from the bottom left quadrant:

Phil Hellmuth -- 5.5k
Michael Binger-- 24.1k
Marco Traniello -- 22.7k
Michael Mizrachi -- 11.3k
Max Pescatori -- 13.8k
Abel Meijberg -- 11.6k
Kirk Morrison -- 12.7k
Jeff Lisandro -- 8k
Daniel Alaei -- 7.8k
Erik Friberg -- 15.6k
Mad Marty Wilson -- 5.6k
Roland de Wolfe -- 17k
Thomas Middelthon -- 21.5k
Jamie Gold -- 20.1k
Tex Barch -- 14.1k
David Pham -- 25.2k
David Daneshgar -- 11.8k
Stephen Pearce -- 24.6k
Steve Wong -- 13.3k
BIll Gazes -- 11k
Jason Lester -- 4.9k
Brandon Shaeffer -- 12.3k
Mark Seif -- 10.8k
Age Spets -- 22.4k

A dejected Marc Goodwin is OUT.

He missed an opened ended flush draw with 5-6s after re-raising pre-flop. Mateyboy bet a tiny amount on the River, but Marc was forced to fold.

Soon after, he ran Tens into Big Slick - "I just knew he was going to hit," he said in defeat.

Kirk Morrison is down to 9k after calling a 3.7k bet on a 5d 4d 6d and folding to his opponent's all-in on the Qh Turn.

Speaking to Brian Wilson about WPT Grand Final runner-upper, Kirk Morrison, he reckoned Negreanu had a piece of Kirk and Erick Lindgren a chunk of Mortsensen. With this in mind, he wondered if there had been a chop chop come heads-up.

Frenchman and former GSOP winner Arnaud Mattern is OUT, subsequently meaning that is massage was cut short.

The two Johnnies...

The two Jeffies...

Oh, and Spiderman.

Patrick Antonius is OUT. He re-raised all-in with Ts 8s but found a caller with Ace Queen, which made a Broadway on the river.

"Why does he play these events?" asked one of the reporters, telling me yesterday after busting out of the Horse that he was playing on Full Tilt with $700,000 spread across 4 tables...


Bumped into Barry Neville who said, "Fookin' 'ell, these young American kids are mad. This kid 'ere bets out on a Queen 'igh flop, 'nd this guy raises him, and kid move all in for t' whole stack with Q-5 and other guy calls wit' two pair! Fookin' 'ell."

Jeff Buffenbarger is OUT, backpack was on and he was walking away from the table...

Incidentally, this photo may seem off-the-cuff, but it is a tad staged, the tournament supervisor (or whatever he is) asking me to take a piccy of his brother's (or, most probably, his) hero.

Of course, I foolishly obliged and felt like a tit in the process. At least Tobey didn't look behind him and notice. If he had, he may have whipped that camera out of my hands with a whoosh of spideman like webness.

Oh, and I nearly forgot this chap, who, incidentally, holds the record for the most number of WSOP cashes... if my source is correct.

Here is David Benyamine. He seems to have a general sense of "Qui?" about him.

Here he was in a happier moment during Level One..still in and chatting away a mile a minute.

The noise Snoopy makes when he demonstrates "webness" has to be heard to be believed, makes the skin crawl.

Damn, just as I get round to resizing my photos, they manage to bust.  Here's Arnaud anyway.

Think Helmuth took TJs record for most cashes earlier in the series snoops. TJ would've been able to cram a few more cashes in this series if they would only shut those damn craps tables down on the way to the card room.

Euro-Watch finds --

Abel Meijberg
Martin Wendt
Noah Boeken
Per Ummer

MINIQUIZ - Who can tell me who the visored half-a-face which got into Per Ummer's photo is?

You could become the 'camp' photographer - taking photos, pinning them up on a board at the end of the room and charging $5 for a copy. new career?

Thomas Wahlroos -- 11.7k
Jeff Cabinillas (sp?) -- 7.6k
John Shipley -- 10.4k
Alex Jacob -- 18.8k
Jeff Madsen -- 12.2k
Ted Forrest -- 6.5k
Johnny Chan -- 7.3k
Tobey Maguire -- 15k

Players are now on a 20 minute break.

Per Ummer is OUT, K-Q on a Q-6-6 board vs Aces.

snoops do you know how pual gourlay is gettin on im currently listening to the table he has rung me fromhis pocket lol
 

Look who I found, it's Mr Chris Moorman, battling away in the short-handed event. He's staying in the Planet Hollywood Hotel but spending most of his time here. He was on over 20k, but by the looks of things, he appears to have taken a knock and is now on the lesser sum 13.2k.

Yeah, Paul Gourlay is 9.8k. He's played a few hands, one of them being Aces where he got rivered by K-J, betting a Q-x-T-x board before slowing down on the Jack River. To be fair, his oppenent flopped an open ended straight draw.

Some British chip counts:

Bullit Pete -- 8.8k
Paul Gourlay -- 9.8k
Andy Black -- 9.7k
Dave Colclough -- 5.6k
Devilfish -- 32k
Chris Moorman -- 13.2k

ty great job as usual

The top ten chip counts courtesy of worldseriesofpoker.com, although Dave Ulliott should be in there...

1st  Men 'The Master' Nguyen -- $72,000
2nd  Keith Lehr -- $54,000
3rd  Jamie Gold -- $39,000
4th  Tex Barch -- $31,000
5th  John Kranyak -- $31,000
6th  Ram Vaswani -- $30,750
7th  David 'The Dragon' Pham -- $26,500
8th  David Mitchell-Lolis -- $26,000
9th  Phil Laak -- $25,500
10th Tony G -- $25,500

Annand Ramdin, Scott Clements & Anontio Esfandari

Ram is now up to 55k whilst Johnny Lodden has 38k.

Donnacha O'Dea, Andreas Hoivold & John Gale

John Gale is OUT, all in with Pocket Eights. Board T-T-3-9-5. Didn't catch opponent's hand.

To give you some idea of how quickly the lineups are changing, here's Max Pescatori's table (Max in profile) and you can clearly see that when this was taken (a level ago) John Kabbaj was not two to his left.  But he is now! 

Dutch Boyd, Erik Seidel, Alan Smurfit & Mimi Tram

Put those untantastic legs away!

And Kabbaj was being sneaky too, checking a K-K-7 board and then check/calling the Ten turn when Max bet. Another Ten came on the river and Kabbaj checked and Max checked behind him. Kabbaj cheekily showing K-Q.

In da hood with da Fish! Booka!

Daniel Smits Bertelsen -- 22k by the last count.

ty!

Great updates.

Security here really is tight. Only a master criminal could evade this chap.

The player are currently on a 20 minute break.

Thats where the Birmingham Airport Security staff has gone then

any idea how joey lovelady gettin on?

I still think this guy is one of the most underrated players in the game. Quiet, reserved but oh so deadly, Allen Cunningham has already won a bracelet this year. In this tournament, he's doing similarly well with a highly commendable 30,100.

Not too far down the row of tables is this chap, another highly underrated player in Jeff 'Jaffacake' Kimber. Unlucky to miss out on a final table position the other day, Jeff will be looking to fair slightly better than his 29th position with a good score here. Like the aforementioned Full Tilt star, Jeff is fairing well so far today with just over 40,000.

As I was quietly admiring Jeff Kimber's impressive column, he alerted me to somewhat of an uproar on a neighbouring table. As my Beagle ears perked up, I saw, and predominantly heard, a right kafuffle involving John Duthie. "Who do you think you are?" exclaims an enraged Mateyboy, wagging his finger furiously at the EPT founder.

Jeff Kimber raises his eyebrows in that, "Golly, what's his beef?" kinda way. Meanwhile, I trotted off, camera in hand to do some quiet observing.

On arrival, I noticed that a pot had built and a Kd 9h Td 9s 5d board was lying patiently on the felt.

"I was just kidding," claims Duthie.

At this point, the Tournament Director trundles over and goes round the table, including Joe Beevers who has 29,400 in chips, asking what exactly happened.

Whilst people like Joe tried to explain, the accusing player kept interrupting and after being constantly told to be quiet, was threatened with a penalty if he spoke just one more word.

According to the table, the accusation was that whilst the player was deciding what to do on the River, John Duthie was mimicking his opponent before saying, "What the fuck are you doing?" as Mateyboy pondered a bet.

"He was trying to intimidate me," claimed Mateyboy. "He doesn't want me to bet".

"It was said in a joking way," pleaded Duthie. "Everyone knows me, I wasn't trying to intimidate him."

In the end, the TD demanded that play continue and issued John Duthie with a warning - "Watch the language, John."

Back to the hand, Mateyboy checked and John took the pot with Kh Jh to create a 43,200 stack.

A very bizarre moment, although the two players did shake hands in the end... perhaps reluctantly.

Ok, well, maybe he's not 5 exactly.

Last year's Main Event finalist Erik Friberg has just donked off 10k, his neighbour making a good call with A-3 on a Kc Ac 7d 2s Ks board.

Friberg had J-To and wasn't too embarrassed about showing his failed bluff, which is refreshing.

Sigh, those were the days.

Jennifer Tilly -- 11.600

Joe Hachem -- 20,800

Sorel Mizzi -- 53,000

Clonie Gowan -- 19,500

Ted Lawson -- 38,700

I believe the chap pictured is bracelet winner Hoyt Corkins (justding by his distinctive cowboy hat). Either way, he's just doubled up to 14,300 courtesy of Phil Laak, the unibomber calling an all-in re-raise with Pocket Eights. Hoyt had A-K, which went on to hit on a 4-A-4-7-5 rainbow(ish) board.

Laak down to 26,400, but still running well.

I also snapped a photo of Phil Gordon before realising that he wasn't even playing this comp.  ;noflopshomer;

Daniel Alaei is up to around 55k-60k after betting 5k into a 10k pot and a board of Kd 7s Aspades 8c Ks.

Mateyboy folded.

Nicolas Levi, has just doubled up with Ahrt Ks in the big blind vs Ac Qh in the small blind, he's up to almost 50k now, the small blind was left to state, "Everytime I have Ace Queen in the small blind, the big blind has Ace King."

Age Spets has doubled up his short stack with Aspades Th vs Howard Lederer's Qd 8c.

Anna Wrobleski is OUT, she had Kh Jc on a Ks 7s Tc board, but opponent had 7h 7c.

Jeff Kimber -- 60k
Tobey Maguire -- 15k
Annie Duke -- OUT
Scotty Nguyen -- OUT

Scandie Daniel Smits is up to 18k, his latest pot being an uncontested 1.8k bet into a 5s Th Kh board.

Isabelle Mercier has just doubled up, and boy did she enjoy it.

All-in for another 6k, her Queens were swiftly called by Sevens, provoking No Mercy into pleading, "No seven, dealer, not this time, no seven." Her opponent naturally requesting the contary, "Yes, seven please."

Anyhow, the board was A-5-9-6-T and Mercier is now up to 23.5k after punching the air in delight.

"Down to 1k, up to 20k, down to 1k, back up to fucking 20k," she added (or something similar)

"Was that the f-word you let slip there?" I asked, at which point the communication barrier brushed aside my humour poking comment as Isabelle became rather defensive. "No, no, it's allowed, honest."

courtesy of worldseriesofpoker.com

1st  Men 'The Master' Nguyen -- $87,000
2nd  Emad Tatou -- $70,000
3rd  Daniel Alaei -- $64,000
4th  John Kranyak -- $59,000
5th  Danny Wong -- $54,000
6th  Dutch Boyd -- $52,000
7th  Bill Edler -- $49,000
8th  Erik Friberg -- $49,000
9th  Tony G -- $48,000
10th  Keith Lehr -- $47,000

And here is your chip leader now, although I counted 88k.  :)

Two Europeans missing from action are John Duthie and Thomas Wahlroos. I can't confirm 100%, but John was wondering around aimlessly at the edge of the cardroom and Thomas's initial seat in now seating someone else.

JP has doubled up through Ram, he hit a 7d 5s 3d board fairly hard with 6s 4s against Ram's Tc Th with no runner runner coming for the Hendon Mob man.

The players are now on another 15 minute break. When they return, I believe they'll play one level before stopping for their 2 hour dinner break.

In the meantime, looky looky, a dog dressed as Yoda!  ;yippee; ;sark;

(http://users.mtrx.net/funnypics/content/-rdm1-ABCD1234-rdm1-/2006/2006-07-08-0006/_dog_yoda.jpg)

Look at his eyes! He hates you.

Henning Granstad is OUT. Sevens vs Kings.

He was after the Darth Vader costume...

This is what he wanted.

(http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f80/danaimmanuel/leiadog.jpg)

Is that from Snoopy's wardrobe?

GL to pab JP and dave may the force be with you

Jeff Kimber has climbed up to 65k.

Meanwhile, Europe's Johan Storakers is adding vital chips to his stack, making a good 2.65k call (5k pot) with Nines on a 6d Jd Jc Ahrt 7s board.

Mateyboy announces King high, and Johan scoops the pot, which gives him circa 25k in chips.

Amir Vahedi is going for the quantity not quality rule, lost of chips in front of him, but alas, only amounting to a paltry 8k.

On another table, Carl Olsen (60k), who saw a 6s 7s 8c with two other youngsters, can only watch on (and fold) as Mateyboy1 bets 4k, Mateyboy2 raises to around 15k, and Mateyboy1 pushes for something like 25k. Shrugging his shoulders, Mateyboy two announces call and shows 8h 7d, pleasantly surprised to see his eager-to-hang-himself opponent flip over Js 9c.

Turn = 2h

River = 7h

Phil Hellmuth is not happy.

"Is he ever?" you cry.

I didn't see the betting on the flop or turn, but 'ZeeJustin' (pic 1) bet 10.5k on the river of a 3d 7d Jd Ks Js board. Hellmuth called, and mucked when he was shown the Kd Jc for the boat.

"So f**king sick," was Hellmuth's words, which, lets face it, isn't likely to make his 'Best Quotes' list.

Shortly afterwards, here he is in fulll Hellmuth dwell-mode (pic 2). His opponent, who he had been trading some less than friendly banter with, put him in on the river of a Tc 2d 3s Aspades 4s board. Eventually he made the call and his opponent mucked straight away as Hellmuth showed Ahrt 8h.

Pab and Dave are out we think.

As I was collating chip counts, well, one (Daniel Alaei -- 55,200), all the players rose from their seats for the 90 minute break - grrrr!

Nevermind, I'll have a quick bite to eat, and brace myself for some post-dinner chip counts.

Whilst I'm stuffing tucker in my gob, take a gander at the top ten (name players only, I assume) courtesy of worldseriesofpoker.com

1st  Jamie Gold -- $88,000
2nd  Men 'The Master' Nguyen -- $87,000
3rd  Keith Lehr -- $80,000
4th  Emad Tahtouh -- $70,000
5th  Dutch Boyd -- $67,000
6th  John Kranyak -- $59,000
7th  Tony G -- $57,000
8th  Daniel Alaei -- $53,800
9th  Bill Edler -- $48,000
10th  Howard Lederer -- $47,500

It's incredibly difficult to get all the chip counts correct, but here's someone who might have been missed from the top counts.

Dario Minieri with what looks like at least 55k.

From Dave Colclough's blog...

Play is due to restart at 9pm (which is er... 8 hours behind you guys).

Where's my abacus when I need it!

Do you have some chip counts on the norwegian guys?
Johnny Lodden, Åge Spets, Thomas Middelthon.

Ty, great updates as always.

Stuart Fox is up there with the chip leaders (although I doubt the Americans still won't recognise him) with an incredible 95k. I just saw his pre-flop raise of 1.6k be raised to 4.6k by Mateyboy nextdoor. Then, suddenly, Mateyboy folds and the chips go to Stuart, so I can only assume that he mumbled all-in, which would have been at least 30k for Mateyboy. What the eck Foxy had is anyone's guess, but the mans on fire!

Meanwhile, Carl Olsen has sat down to his left, joining Erik Seidel as 2 of Foxy's 5 opponents.

Åge Spets went out just before the dinner break. He told me he lost a big pot earlier with A-K vs A-6 with a Six on the river, then he was always struggling and short.

A quick Dutch Boyd observation. He sure has put on a bit of weight. I almost went up to him and grabbed his cheek.

Joking aside, he seems to be in top form today, right up their with the big boys with just over 70k.

JP Kelly just pushed all-in pre-flop with Pocket Eights, and survived. Meanwhile, Ram Vaswani called a 4k bet with K-4 on a K-6-5-7-6 board and, unsurprisingly, won. He's up to 65k.

Mark Teltscher is OUT. He lost most of his chips with J-9 vs. J-T on a Q-T-x Flop, before Jeff Kimber laid on the finishing touches with K-J vs. Q-3. "Another pathetic performance," added Teltscher as he left.

Johnny Lodden is on about 70k, whilst Foxy has 90k. Phil Hellmuth is recovering a little, he's up to 30k. Thomas Middelthon is MIA.

First place incidentally is paying just over $900,000.

Martin Wendt -- 13,000
JP Kelly -- 8,600
Jamie Gold -- 86,000
Bill Gazes -- 13,800
Michael Binger -- 20,200
Roland de Wolfe -- 55,800
Isabelle Mercier -- 40,800
David Daneshgar -- 47,500
Men Nguyen -- 116,900
Justin Bonomo -- 83,700
Steve Zolotow -- 13,300
Tobey Maguire -- 47,200
Joe Cassidy -- 28,300
Amir Vahedi --  24,100
John Shipley -- 22,600
Tony G -- 67,600
Nicolas Levi -- 70,000
Mark Vos -- 53,400

Mateyboy makes it 1.4k, JP Kelly moves all-in, Mateyboy folds.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that JP has wrestling theme tunes on his ipod. What kind of loser like wrestling?!  :dontask:

Erick Lindgren, fresh from winning a $340k prop bet on (what else?) golf.

Erik Seidel, Carl Olsen and Stuart Fox.

Amir Vahedi

Our probable chip leader sitting next to a very shy Tobey Maguire.

Vicky Coren is very impressed by the size of Jamie Gold's rack. Of chips.

He'll have to allow for periods of time being blinded away every time a baby gets trapped in a burning building or something...

While Amir Vahedi receives a foot massage (lucky he's not married to Marsellus Wallace), Tony G has enjoys a brief blind v blind battle with his neighbour, and I experience the joy of witnessing a slight dribble of Tony G trash talk seeping out, the nefarious Lithuanian commenting "You only have two options, raise or fold" as his small blind opponent ponders a decision.

Howard Lederer has around 40k after re-raising Alex Jacob's pre-flop raise of 2.1k to 12.1k.

Allen Cunningham -- 68,200
Johnny Lodden -- 70,200
Joe Beevers -- 49,500
Michael Mizrachi -- 5,000
Sam Grizzle -- 60,000
Phil Laak -- 41,300
Stuart Fox -- 29,300
Hoyt Corkins -- 24,800
Erik Seidel -- 29,300
Carl Olsen -- 101,300
Erik Lindrgen -- 22,800
Ted Lawson -- 73,000
Vicky Coren -- 17,000
Scott Clements -- 74,500
Rory Matthews -- 18,200
Tore Lagerborg -- 28,800
Dutch Boyd -- 99,700
Dario Minieri -- 61,400
Sorel Mizzi -- 40,400
Daniel Alaei -- 33,200
huck Seed -- 43,400
Jeff Kimber -- 115,000
Johan Storakers -- 16,200

David Levi is OUT, teased on the Flop and Turn.

All-in with A-T v J-J, the Flop brought 5c-Ac-2c (no one holds a club), only for the Turn to bring a painful but justified red Jack.

Phil Hellmuth has added another 10k or so to his stack, re-raising a 3.8k River bet on a 6c 6s 9d Qs 4d to 10k, his young opponent's "Surely you didn't call me with a 6 pre-flop" comment receiving no response.

Hellmuth's bet was called nonetheless, only for the 11-bracelet winner to show Kings for the pot.

JP Kelly, still plugging away with 20k, but the blinds are gradually catching up with him.

German/Italian/American (gosh, this chap get around) Mark Bartlog is running super duper with 130k. Wowzer!

Phil Laak is all-in for 33k with 15k in the pot. Hoyt Corkins folds, although rather reluctantly.

Erik Friberg will be kicking himself, making an incorrect River call for a chunky 16k. The board read Jd Kd 3s Js Qc and his opponent held the monster hand of Qh Jh.

The Swede still has 75k though.

Tobey Maguire is an interesting character. He's a mega film star but just sort of fits in quietly here, perhaps because he's such a reserved, dressed down kinda chap. Seems to lack the 'shine', glamour or gloss that you might expect from someone as famous as him. You can tell people are looking at him, perhaps out of the corner of their eye whilst they whisper to a neighbour, "Look, it's Spiderman."

He certainly doesn't crave attention, and constantly hides his face when the cameras are lingering, which seems odd to me unless there is some legal spin lurking.

During the breaks, he is a lonesome chap, tapping away on his blackberry (or whatever it is), talking to no one and generally keeping himself to himself.

Would be fun to see him get far, he couldn't possibly avoid the spotlight then.

worldseriesofpoker.com

1st  Men 'The Master' Nguyen -- $190,000
2nd  Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo -- $107,000
3rd  Dutch Boyd -- $97,000
4th  Johnny Lodden -- $96,000
5th  Erik Friberg -- $91,000
6th  Tony G -- $80,000
7th  Phil Galfond -- $80,000
8th  Keith Lehr -- $80,000
9th  Fred Goldberg -- $77,000
10th  Jeff Shulman -- $71,000

There are currently 132 players left with an average stack of 55k.

It is believed that both Stuart Fox and Erik Seidel have bitten the dust as both their seats are empty, although the latter is now filled by the hoodie wearing presence of Phil Laak.

Will have to confirm these exits though.

A tantastic Roland de Wolfe and his 65k stack.

Watch out Carlo, there's a new Tango Man in town.  ;hide;

Roland de Wolfe raises it up from the button, the Small Blind calls.

Flop = 2d Kc 7s

Mateyboy checks, Roland bets 4k, MB check-raises to 14k, Roland swiftly calls.

MB passes his cards to Roland, who has a sneaky look at what beat him.

Unfortunately, this little mediaman didn't share the view.

Interesting hand involving Joe Beevers.

Board reads 7c Qd 9h 8s 5c

Mateyboy bets 11k, Joe re-raises to 27k, MB folds, but shows the 6h in the process.

I know I didn't catch the hand history, but I wouldn't imagine this was an easy hand to pass.

I think even Joe was surprised by the haste of the fold.

1st  Alex Prendes Jr. -- $181,000
2nd  Mikko -- $170,000
3rd  Justin 'ZeeJustin' Bonomo -- $145,000
4th  Men "The Master" Nguyen -- $144,000
5th  Sam Grizzle -- $130,000
6th  Michael Eriksen -- $128,000
7th  Mark Bartlog -- $127,000
8th  Mike Guttman -- $121,000
9th  Jeff Krabel -- $118,000
10th  Nick Van Newkirk -- $100,000

thx to worldseriesofpoker.com for the counts

Chipcount on lodden please??

JP Kelly is OUT.

A-Q vs. Kings.

Ipod check:

Sorel Mizzi (90.1k) is currently listening to a song by his friend, which he described as alternative rock.

I asked him if he 'Eye of the Tiger', but unfortunately he didn't have any motivational songs, although he did confess to being twice as likely to re-raise when an Eminem track crops up.

Mark Bartlog, who had 130k not too long again, is somehow down to 45k.

Looking around the table, those chips could well have sailed Dutch Boyd's way, as he is now up there with the chip leaders with 169k.

Exciting stuff from Table Laak, involving the Laakster himself.

Internet hotshot Carl Olsen bet 6.5k on a 6h 9s 8c Flop, Mateyboy (pictured) smooth called and the Unibomber, after packing up his gear, popping on his backpack and rising from his seat, took a deep breath and pushed all-in.

The animated performance drew a rye smile out of Olsen, who folded, but not Mateyboy, who was perhaps detecting a possible squeeze play.

After a long delay, Mateyboy did indeed fold and Phil rejoined the game.

In the above hand, I dum dum dum... acidentally used the flash, an act which has threatened the existence of many a blogger.

The eerie foosteps of a TD hear, but luckily I pleaded "Accident!" just in time to evade castration.

Phew.  ;ashamed;

A guy to Hellmuth's right decides to put his whole 80k-90k stack in preflop with Sixes.

Against Hellmuth's Aces.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c245/RTidd/CurbYour.jpg)

"Why would you do that?"

Hellmuth close to being chip leader.

Phil Laak is up to 100k after eliminating an opponent with Ahrt Th vs. Aspades 9c. 2s Qs Jd 4s 6h board.

Much hilarity has just ensued due to a highly intoxicated Thomas Wahlroos waltzing into the cardroom and demolishing Roland de Wolfe's 140k stack. Moments later, he trundled over to Phil Hellmuth's table and did exactly the same. He then buggered off.

Whilst Roland look shocked, he was still smiling. Hellmuth, meanwhile, was livid, and raced over to Roland exclaiming, "Hey, Roland, what's up with your boy? Something needs to be done about him."

With the bloggers giggling under their breath, Hellmuth then chased the TD and demanded action be taken. "It's not acceptable," he moaned. "He can't just come in here and do that! I was in the middle of a hand!"

You have to laugh - Wahlroos eliminated the Poker Brat from the WPT Final, if my memory serves me right.

I think this is the first time I have ever heard of someone demanding a penalty for someone in another comp.

I just witnessed a cracking call from bracelet winner Scott Clement, his opponent moving all-in for around 35k on a board of 4d 5s Qh Th

Scott made an excellent with Ac Ts, Mateyboy churlishly showing Ahrt 5h.

Js on the River and Bob's your uncle.

Table's quite tough now:

Tobey Maguire
Erik Friberg
Mark Vos
Scott Clement
Nicolas Levi

... and some dude in a Hawain shirt who just looks like a tourist who's taken a wrong turn.

Johnny Lodden -- 21,500

Is moorman still in?

Board = 5s 3c 4d 8s Jd and Nicolas Levi, who, oddly, isn't wearing his trademark hat, calls a big Turn bet from Friberg, before checking down the River, saying, "Got a pair?" Friberg shows Ac 5c, which is enough to take the pot. "I think I played every street badly," add Levi. He still has 101.5k though.

I'm afraid I haven't seen Chris for a good few hours. Looks like he's a gonna.

Johnny Lodden is OUT. A-Q raised, all-in from Beevers. Joe turns over Aces, Johnny dead meat.

"Do you ever lose a hand?" asks one of the other players.

Joe doesn't waste his breath responding.

A stockier than usual Dutch Boyd.

Top 10 chip counts:

1st  Dutch Boyd -- $284,000
2nd  Alex Prendes Jr. -- $225,000
3rd  Ram Vaswani -- $185,000
4th  Phil Hellmuth -- $180,000
5th  Erik Friberg -- $175,000
6th  Alex Brenes -- $170,000
7th  Kush Patel -- $148,000
8th  Men 'The Master' Nguyen -- $144,000
9th  Mark Vos -- $140,000
10th  Nick Van Newkirk -- $135,000

worldseriesofpoker.com

Phil Laak is OUT.

Caught him in the hallway on the way out, he looked gutted.

"Yep, I'm gone," he said dejectedly.

With 25 minutes remaining, the situation is thus:

14 tables
81 players
89,876 average stack

Good news, the clever men at pokernews.nl managed to get a funny interview with a slightly drunk Wahlroos and are putting up on Youtube in a short while. We'll post a link when we get it.

With 79 remaining, we still have a potentially star-studded final table on the cards including:

Jame Gold
Vicky Coren
Men The Master
Mark Bartlog
Roland de Wolfe
Jeff Madsen
Justin Bonomo
Tobey Maguire
Nicholas Levi
Mark Vos
Erik Friberg
Scott Clement
Joe Beevers
David Daneshgar
Dutch Boyd
Sam Grizzle
Johan Storakers
Phil Hellmuth
Bill Gazes

Anyone know anything about Valerie Morris ... she started at Table 37

thx

Play has ended for the day with 77 players still in.

Hellmuth still had time to take a pot down with a 13k bet on the river of a 3c 4c 6s 3c Tc board whilst Jamie Gold has a $700 massage bill to pay.

We're now going to focus our energies on the end of the HORSE event.

Unless I'm mistaken, the only female players remaining are Vicky Coren and Isabelle Mercier, so I'd imagine she has already departed.

Just as they were bagging up, I managed to grab a few last minute chip counts:

Vicky Coren -- 29,200
Mark Bartlog -- 20,200
Dutch Boyd -- 285,000
David Daneshgar -- 94,400
Allen Cunningham -- 86,300
Toby Maguire -- 46,900
Roland de Wolfe -- 126,500
Joe Beevers -- 207,400
Ram Vaswani -- 158,200
Justin Bonomo -- 152,000
Tony G -- 67,000
Men Nguyen -- 61,000
Jamie Gold -- 70,000

I offered Jen a buck (no 'f' gags please) to approach Tobey Maguire and say, "I loved you in Donnie Darko".

She wasn't up for it.

(http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/uploaded_images/BeavisButthead-711924.jpg)

See you tomorrow for what looks like being an entertaining Day 2 with plenty of stars still plugging away.

Different bat time (2pm US, 10pm UK), same bat channel. (http://www.superherotimes.com/forums/images/smilies/icon_batman.gif)

Toodle loo

 ;stickaforkinme;

Come to think of it, do you see any resemblance between Beavis and our own special beagle?

Huh huh huh huh.

I've mainly been covering the H.O.R.S.E. final today, but I did look up when they announced that the remaining players were in the money... speaking of treating Phil Hellmuth like he might be a superior being in all ways, they also announced that this was the (impressive) 62nd cash of Mr. Hellmuth in a WSOP.  "Give him a round of applause.  Come on, he deserves it."  A few minutes later, they announced that another string of cashes had been added to - by Men the Master.  "It's Men the Master's 56th cash, too," came the announcement.  He took exception to this, however, shouting, "I got 59!  That's wrong."  Well, that's a lot of cashes between them anyway.

this had me laughing out loud...class!