2007 WSOP, Day 12: Undercover Posting

So I hadn’t planned on posting anything until mid-week as I’m out of town on a sort-of-vacation (am tagging along with Vera while she attends a conference). Scored a little table here in the corner of one of the conference rooms that offers wi-fi access to the intertubes, and so I’ve been able to catch up on all things WSOP. Gonna try to sneak a post up here before anybody realizes I don’t have one of those nametags hanging around my neck . . . .

I see Allen Cunningham has won his fifth bracelet, taking down Event No. 13, the $5,000 pot limit Hold ’em event. That makes three straight years Cunningham has won a bracelet. As Earl Burton reports, that feat puts Cunningham in a fairly elite group. Only four other players have ever done it -- Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Erik Seidel, and Gary Berland. This is Cunningham’s third bracelet in Hold ’em events (the other two were NL); he’s also won bracelets in Seven Card Stud and Deuce-to-Seven.

I also see that Phil Hellmuth managed -- on the 11th day of the WSOP -- to score an 11th bracelet yesterday, again in NL hold ’em, outlasting 2,627 other runners in Event No. 16. Must have employed them black belt techniques he’s been selling. As Dr. Pauly relates over on Tao of Poker, Hellmuth made much of the date’s significance: “Today is June 11th,” he said. “My sister Molly’s birthday is 11-11-71 so it’s fitting that I give her number 11.” (I suppose it would have been strange for him to have mentioned it being my birthday yesterday.) Say what you will, but Hellmuth simply crushes those big WSOP NLHE fields.

Finally, I also see how Tom Schneider made it all of the way to 4th place in the $2,500 H.O.R.S.E. event (Event No 16), pocketing a cool $54K . . . perhaps to be used to pay the entry fee for Event No. 39 (the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship)?

By the way, I keep recommending you go check out PokerNews’s live coverage. For just about all of the final tables, B.J. Nemeth is providing the excellent reports, often relating every hand. If you go back through the reporting from yesterday’s final table of the H.O.R.S.E. event, you’ll see how Nemeth not only does a great job relating the action, but he also offers a lot of extra information about the players and goings-on at (and around) the table. For instance, you’ll see mixed in here a few reports of Tom’s wife, Julie, cheering on the Donkey Bomber. Here’s one, coming soon after Tom had held off elimination when he managed to scoop a 100,000-chip pot in Omaha/8:

Post-Hand Comments From Mrs. Schneider

After Tom Schneider's big hand, his wife had snuck under the rail to get a closer look, and she was still worried after the river card, even though he clinched it. Someone pointed out that he already had the nut. When the river card also gave him a low, someone said, and now he's got two nuts.

Happy that her husband is still alive in the tournament, Mrs. Schneider excitedly said, “I'll take two nuts!” Ali Eslami quipped, “You’ll have to wait a bit -- he’s busy.”

Gotta love it. By the way, Tom is one of only four players thus far who have made two final tables at this year’s WSOP. The other three are Marco Traniello (Events No. 4 and 11), Humberto Brenes (Events No. 7 and 13), and Walter Browne (Events No. 10 and 16). And he’s the only one of that group who took one of those final tables down.

Like I’ve said, do go over to PokerNews for those live reports. You can also listen to audio from some of the final tables over at the WSOP official site by clicking here. Here's the schedule -- the days with audio coverage are in green. (These audio broadcasts are freebies, by the way, unlike the video stuff also being offered.)

Uh oh . . . here comes someone with a nametag and stern look. I’m gonna make scarce. Look, if anybody asks, you didn’t see nuthin’ . . . .