2008 WSOP, Day 9: Running Well

You could say I have been running well here at the 2008 World Series of Poker, at least in terms of what tourneys I have been drawing to cover for PokerNews.

My first event was Event No. 4, the $10,000 Mixed Hold’em (Limit/No-Limit) Event, won by Erick “E-Dog” Lindgren. A fun one from beginning to end, with a terrific final table. For my next event I drew Event No. 11, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout, and it has proven to be an interesting one to cover as well.

Yesterday was Day 2, which saw six six-handed tables play down to winners who will now compete against each other at this afternoon’s final table. One table finished in a little over an hour, while the longest one took close to seven. That translated into an eight-hour day for yours truly, probably about as short of a day as I’m going to see this summer at the WSOP.

We got just about every bustout hand, and a number of others. I particularly enjoyed passing along some of the highlights from the nearly four-hour long heads up battle between Tim “Tmay420” West and John Juanda, the last of the tables to complete. At one point Juanda held an 11-to-1 chip advantage over West, but West caught a few breaks (and made some good decisions) and managed to come all the way back to win and thus make the final table.

I believe the final table will be staged over in the Milwaukee’s Best Light “No Limit Lounge,” i.e. the mini-stadium they’ve set up over in the corner of the Amazon Room for the televised final tables. This one won’t be appearing on ESPN later this summer, but is being broadcast over ESPN360 in some fashion, so I believe it must be happening there in that staging area.

That means we’ll see some fans in the stands, and I think the line-up will bring out a number of folks supporting West (a huge online star) as well as Leo Wolpert, who goes by “Superfluous Man” over on Two Plus Two. Greg “FBT” Mueller is also well-liked by a number of live pros and so I imagine a number will show up to sweat him as well. I’d love to see a raucous crowd to come out to make the final table more exciting to watch and report.

Felt reasonably satisfied with our coverage of the event yesterday. We had some good reporters helping us, and they did an above average job (I thought) getting us hands and other material to report. I did notice over on Two Plus Two a thread about Event No. 11 on which Wolpert pointed out we’d been a bit off reporting one of his hands -- a big one, actually, in which he had pocket aces and ended up busting one player and taking most of the other’s stack as well. We’d gotten the gist of it right, though. It was an odd hand, in which he pushed with A-A, got called by J-J, then a third player called almost all of his chips, too, with K-Q. The third call certainly seems suspect, but that’s what happened.

I reported that hand exactly as it was given to me, though apparently there were a couple of discrepancies in there regarding the preflop action. Nothing too terribly huge, but enough to make the report slightly inaccurate. That’s gonna happen, though, and I think it is probably best not to brood too much over that sort of thing. I certainly want every hand I report to be absolutely accurate, clearly written, and perhaps even interesting and/or entertaining. Won’t get there every time, but hopefully we’ll come close for the great majority of the posts.

Anyhow, I look forward to today’s action. I’m also curious about Event No. 15, the Ladies No-Limit Hold’em World Championship ($1,000 buy-in), which gets started at noon. I wrote a couple of posts last summer “Regarding the WSOP Ladies Event,” a bone of contention among certain of those who comment on the poker scene. Definitely curious this time to see the tournament first-hand, as well as to hear some of the dialogue about it tomorrow. (I also am especially pulling for at least one entrant in particular to do well.)

Incidentally, ending early last night enabled me to run over to the Imperial Palace afterwards for some mixed game fun with Falstaff, Special K, F-Train, Easycure, and others. Did okay for a while, but Razz ended up breaking my heart more than once and I ended up down for the session. Actually spent some time playing with a fellow on my left who will be entering Event No. 26, the $1,500 Razz event, which starts next Friday. And damned if he didn’t take a decent-sized pot off me in the Razz round when I’d started 5-4-2-6 and bricked the rest of the way to lose to his 7-low. Still had a ton of fun. Hope to get back on the H.O.R.S.E. here before too long.

More later.