2008 WSOP, Day 43: Whirlwind

Day 4 of the Main Event was a whirlwind, roaring headlong down the road toward its ultimate destination of the final nine at a crazy pace. As I write this Saturday morning here at the home-away-from-home, it almost seems strange not to be hearing the dealers’ mantra of “All in and a call!” punctuating every few minutes of consciousness.

Yesterday was one of absolute nonstop posting from beginning to end. Always seemed to have four or five tickets to write up at every moment. The half-dozen of us who were blogging managed to churn out 35 pages’ worth of posts in just three-and-a-half levels. Each page includes 10 posts, so we’re talking a new one going up about every minute or so, with most being more than just a couple of sentences. Add it all up and it is like we co-authored a short historical novel chronicling the day.

Went so quickly yesterday, I really can’t even tell you what happened. I know we started the day with 474 players, and were already in the money. We ended with 189, with WSOP staff ending things early so as to stretch this sucker out more evenly over the next three days.

I know Iggy got eliminated early in the day (hell of a run, man!). I saw (and reported on) Phil Hellmuth acting up as usual, though surviving (as usual). I heard Jean-Robert Bellande took a sick beat on the ESPN feature table. That one drew the loudest roar I’d heard throughout the entire WSOP.

Tino Lechich took another tough beat on the feature table, too, and he ended up coming over to my desk afterwards where he described it to me. I wasn’t sure if our guys had caught the hand, and so asked him if he wanted me to narrate his demise to the world. He obliged, although it turned out one of our guys had caught the hand and already had a post ready to go.

Players at Blue Table #1 (right next to my workstation) were pushing around massive stacks of chips pretty much throughout the day, perfectly willing to gamble it up big time. I saw and reported on one hand between David Saab and Jason Su in which a series of preflop bets had them all in, each holding A-K. Not so strange, except for the fact that Saab started the hand with 1.8 million and Su with 1.2 million, and the blinds were only 4,000/8,000. That’s right -- no hesitation whatsoever from either about committing 150 big blinds with Big Slick.

In the middle of all that action on Table #1 was Kara Scott, patiently nursing her below average stack while effortlessly dazzling all of the males in the vicinity with her smile and glances from underneath her green PokerStars cap. She eventually got moved to the feature table as well, and so will be getting some television time this fall, I imagine.

Among those surviving to Day 5, we have Mike Matusow, Tiffany Michelle, Allen Cunningham, Andrew “Foucault” Brokos, Jeff Madsen, Matt Matros, Phil Hellmuth, Mark Vos, Kara Scott, Sean Sheikhan, Victor Ramdin, Gus Hansen, Chip Jett, Hoyt Corkins, and Kido Pham. (Pham was my pick early on, and I even dedicated a post to him early in the tourney that kind of singled him out as a player to watch.) I think I heard someone say the plan today was to play down to the last 36 players, though I am not positive on that.

I’ll be back at PokerNews helping cover the action today. Could be the last day for me, as we are continuing to winnow down the number of reporters and bloggers being used. Yesterday was quite fun and satisfying, as I started the day with just five tables assigned to me, and thus between myself and the three reporters I had aiding me, we were able to cover essentially every important hand and bustout throughout the day. Today should operate in a similar fashion, with each of the bloggers probably having four or at most five tables to cover.

So follow along over at PokerNews, why don’t ya?