Poker News Round-upBrought to you every Friday |
Poker News Round-up: Week #27 Matt Hawrilenko  David Bach  Vinny Price I thought being in Las Vegas to bring you the news this week would make this straight forward. Those that are longer in the tooth on tournament reporting than me will have already realised that the WSOP is so colossal and consuming with so much happening simultaneously that it is impossible to be everywhere at once. This can leave you feeling further away from the action than you did when you were 5000 miles away the week before! The last few smaller tournaments were driven through to their respective conclusions and with due respect to the winners, ESPN probably won’t have got through too much tape in the process. Greg Mueller won the limit shootout event and joined the 2009 multi-bracelet bandwagon nearly $200k better off than he was before he entered. Matt Hawrilenko, considered by many to be the best limit holdem player alive, obviously had his eye off the ball for the limit event as he set about taking down the NL 6max tournament instead. Many players consider this one of the very toughest events available with a very strong field, so I am sure Hoss_TBF will have been happy to demonstrate his all-round ability. He was probably fairly happy with the juicy $1m reward that accompanied the event too. By far the biggest event of the week was the $50k HORSE which went to David Bach. Not too many soft spots in a tournament of this calibre, so the worthy winner can feel pleased with his performance and enjoy spending the $1.25 million first prize. Not bad against a final table line-up including Sagstrom, Lunkin, Siedel, Giang and Huck Seed, all rumoured to be able to play a bit too. There was even room in the money for John Kabbaj, who may have been hoping for better things than 16th, including the opportunity to give Harrahs some further practice at playing the correct version of the national anthem. Elsewhere on my travels in the Rio I can confirm sightings of several well known faces spending more than $10k trying to win a satellite into the main event (currently about 3400 registered late on Thursday evening) Lots of the niggles around toilet breaks, food outlets, dealer standards and such of previous years have largely disappeared, leaving the only thing left to moan about to each other the usual sick exit hands suffered by all. Away from the tables, Hellmuth is planning another grand entrance, rumoured to be in a chariot dressed as Caesar with all the trimmings. I hope they don’t use too many horses at the front as he doesn’t have a very good track record with high powered vehicular entrances of late. Whilst the main focus continues to be at the WSOP, Vince Price took his opportunity to take down the Walsall GUKPT event and twenty grand first prize in the last of the ‘discounted’ summer events. Next stop on the tour is Luton and a return to a 1k buy-in for the main event. Those registered for day 1A should all be safely tucked up in bed as you read this in preparation for the grueling task that lies in store for many. While some will have bad luck and others will reflect that perhaps they shouldn’t have even been there, many will have to face the prospect of negotiating the 4th July celebrations quickly followed by split day 2 scheduling and up to 6 further days of scheduled play before joining the ranks of the 2009 November Nine. Quite a daunting prospect, but something that several thousand entrants will be hoping they have to endure. |
 Be a Full Tilt VIP and get 27% RakeBack!  |
