Poker News Round-up

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Poker News Round-up: Week #25

By Adam Noone, 20/06/2008

This year has seen record field in numerous events at the WSOP, proving that the UIGEA has had little impact on the overall popularity of poker despite the restrictions America has sought to impose on the online game. Logic would seem to dictate that these larger fields would be making the job of winning a bracelet much harder for the seasoned pros who are now having to fend off more and more new challengers, but this year has been notable for the success of the more established players. There have been victories already this year for Lindgren, Matusow, Singer and Negreanu, and this week saw another five pros sponsored by Full Tilt and two by Pokerstars all collecting bracelets.

Bracelet number 2 for the Italian Pirate

Jens Voertmann was the first from the Full Tilt camp to taste victory when he won the $3,000 HORSE event. The German saw off a strong final table including Jennifer Harman, Steve Zolotow, Hoyt Corkins and Marcel Luske to collect $298,253 and his first bracelet. Fellow European and Full Tilt pro Max Pescatori then claimed his second career bracelet in event 24 - $2,500 mixed pot limit hold’em/Omaha. This event also saw good performances from Englishmen JP Kelly and Dave Penly who finished ninth and tenth.

The recent popularity of heads up tournaments saw a world championship event added to the WSOP schedule last year, and this format returned again for 2008 with an increased buy in of $10,000. Most events so far have seen some players arriving late and being blinded away, but then in most events you don’t have to put up a blind every single hand. Freddy Deeb, David Pham and Kenny Tran all appeared unconcerned by the big difference turning up late to a heads up match made though and were all absent when the first cards were dealt. It proved to be a costly decision for Deeb and Pham who were both eliminated in the first round, but not so for Kenny Tran. His opponent Steve Billirakis watched the dealer gradually move the first quarter of Tran’s stack to him uncontested, but when Tran did bother to show up he made short work of Billirakis to progress to round two.

Kenny Tran

More timely appearances saw Tran defeat Mathias Andersson and Dustin Dorrance-Bowman to set up an attractive looking match against Erick Lindgren. Tran had to come from behind and get his money in with the worst of it, but heads up play requires a bit of gamble in a player and a man with a nickname of “Sick Call” is bound to have plenty of that. Victory over Lindgren was followed up with wins against Roman Paradiso, Brandon Adams, Jonathan Jaffe and ultimately Alec Torelli in a best of three final to give Kenny Tran a hard earned victory and $539,056. It might all have been different if the dealer had been a little faster in the first game and Tran had lost more chips in absentio, but as it was another Full Tilt pro collected a bracelet. An honourable mention also goes to Vanessa Selbst in this event. Selbst had already won a bracelet of her own this year and came very close to another here. Defeat in the semi-final meant that she equalled her result in the equivalent event last year, but she does pick up valuable points that put her in with a chance of winning the WSOP player of the year title.

Poker legend Barry Greenstein

Event 26 saw another big name claim victory in the $1,500 razz in the shape of Barry Greenstein. Greenstein was one of the chip leaders throughout the whole tournament and managed to add another title to his already impressive record with victory over a final table that included legendary Vegas gambler Archie Karas. As well as three WPT titles Greenstein now has three WSOP bracelets in three different events, helping to cement his reputation as one of the finest all round poker players on the planet. Greenstein is also well known for his generosity and not for the first time at this WSOP the prize money for first place will be finding its way to charitable causes.

Phil Galford

The pot limit Omaha rebuy in event 28 was another chance for those with deep pockets to cut loose as they sought to spin up a big stack early on, and even at $5,000 a time there were plenty of rebuys being made. The action from 152 entrants was sufficient to generate a prize pool in excess of $3,000,000 and as you might expect with that sort of money on the line, the big names were out in force. The nine who made it to the final table boasted 28 WSOP bracelets between them but Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, Kiril Gerasimov, Johnny Chan and David Benyamine all had to make way for two youngsters with no WSOP wins to battle it out heads up. Phil Galfond, a regular at the high stakes games on Full Tilt as OMGClayAiken, eventually got the better of Adam Houran to claim his first bracelet in a very tough event and with it $817,781.

John Phan

After a number of near misses in WPT and WSOP events, John Phan finally put that right with a first bracelet in the $3,000 no limit hold’em, although it all ended in rather unusual circumstances. A gruelling heads up battle against Johnny Neckar had gone on for more than six hours when the two decided that a finish had to be reached one way or another and both agreed to just move all in blind every hand. Even then a winner could not be found straight away, but eventually Phan managed to eliminate Neckar and head off for some well earned sleep.

Dario Minieri likes queens

Another world championship event saw another win for a Full Tilt pro when Rob Hollink emerged victorious in the $10,000 limit hold’em event, then it was the turn of Pokerstars to provide a winner in event 31. Young Italian Dario Minieri’s aggressive play certainly got people’s attention in the main event last year, and his relentless style seemed well suited to the six handed format of this $2,500 no limit hold’em event. Minieri gathered a lot of chips early on then exerted pressure with his big stack, but needed a large slice of luck to avoid falling at the final hurdle. When heads up against Seth Fischer, Minieri got it all in pre-flop with 3 4 versus Fischer’s pocket kings. With Fischer sitting on the bigger stack, he appeared to be moments away from victory but running fours on the turn and river for Minieri were enough to turn things right around and shortly afterwards he had completed the reversal when his pocket queens held up in another all in clash.

So we are now past the half way stage at this year’s WSOP and the battle is on for the player of the year title. At the time of writing Barry Greenstein is tied with Erick Lindgren for first with Daniel Negreanu not far behind in third. A good series form Vanessa Selbst sees her currently in fourth with David Singer and Chris Ferguson tied for fifth. With the $50,000 HORSE and the main event not counting towards player of the year standings, we could well be looking at one of these six as this year’s winner but there is still time for someone to steal it with a second bracelet win as Tom Schneider did last year. There are thousands of lesser known players ready and willing to upset the applecart but at the moment it’s looking as though 2008 is going to be the year of the pros.

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