2007 WSOP- Final Table Is Set

Just stating that I stayed up until 730am to find out who the final nine players were and wrote this blog before I went to bed. Yeah I kinda like poker a little bit. As of 730am ET, Steven Garfinkle finished in 10th and we now have our final table.

Might as well as get the bad news out of the way first...Scotty Nguyen lost 15 million chips in a matter of 20 minutes and went from 2nd in chips all the way to being eliminated in 11th place. It felt like I was kicked in the balls when I read the update of Scotty's demise, but the poker continues and through it all we have yet another pro making the final table again this year. Congrats to Lee Watkinson who is the only pro to make the final table this year, and has now become my guy. Ill be rooting hard again this year for a pro to win this event and Lee is the guy who can do it. See Below for final nine chip counts.

The players will have an off-day on Monday to prepare for the final table.

LIVE FINAL TABLE- this Tuesday @ 3pm at Po's poorhouse

Buy-in poker all night

Lets go Lee Watkinson!

The final nine players in order of chips:

1. Philip Hilm- 23,070,000

2. Tuan Lam- 20,290,000

3. John Kalmar- 20,220,000

4. Raymond Rahme- 16,000,000

5. Lee Childs- 13,320,000

6. Lee Watkinson- 9,975,000

7. Hevad Khan- 9,205,000

8. Jerry Yang- 8,500,000

9. Alex Kravchenko- 6,570,000

BASIC poker KNOWLEDGE..............

2007 WSOP Main Event Day 5

Well boys, Day 5 is complete and we are now down to the final 36 players in the 2007 Main Event. Today saw probably some of the best poker of the entire tournament being played. One person who did not play very good poker was Harry Potter himself- Dario Minieri. He had the Day 4 chip lead in the morning and then fell out of the top 25 when starting Day 5. This would be his last day in the main event as he was knocked out after going all-in on a spade flush draw and coming up short. Good riddens to this scarf wearing faggot and thank god I dont have to watch him at the final table on Tuesday.


Pro Players Update:

Going into the day I told myself I would be shocked if any pros got through to Day 6 tomorrow. Well my prediction was almost correct with the exception of four men, Scotty Nguyen, Kenny Tran, Daniel Alaei and Lee Watkinson. These four have become the last hope for a poker pro to make the final table and to keep my interest. Watkinson not only survived but held the chip lead for most of the day. He eventually lost half his stack to Scotty Nguyen so it was a bitter sweet defeat in my viewpoint. Scotty has become my number 1 guy, and I need him at the final table so I can root hard for him. "Thats no limit, baby!"

Other pros who werent so lucky were Chad Brown, Gus Hansen, Humberto Brenes, Carlos Mortensen, and Huck Seed. An absolutely fabulous run this year by these guys, but in the end all of them fell short of the final table and that doesnt make me very happy at all.

So as I said, we are now down to the final 36 players and here is our the top five chip counts, heading into play tomorrow. Tomorrow they will play all the way until a final table is reached. Last year it took them until 530am ET to play down from 27 players to 9 players, so going from 36 to 9 this year may be a challenge. Nonetheless, Big Po will have all the updates and the Final Nine Players in the blog tomorrow... cya then

Top five Chip Counts (36 players left)
1. David Tran 10,030,000
2. Philip Hilm 10,000,000
3. Ray Henson 8,500,000
4. Hevad Khan 6,900,000
5. Lee Childs 6,675,000

Pros:
9. Kenny Tran 5,045,000
12. Lee Watkinson 3,550,000
25. Daniel Alaei 2,000,000
27. Scotty Nguyen 1,750,000


BASIC poker KNOWLEDGE............

2007 WSOP Main Event Day 4

Well now its time to go over all the action that took place on Day 4 of the main event. When I left you last night I was talking about the scarf wearing...Harry Potter loving...fagboy Dario Minieri. Well Dario started off day 4 exactly how I wanted him too- by getting crippled. Dario started the day at 2.4 million in chips (overall chip leader) but in the first hour he watched his chip stack get cut in half. He lost the biggest pot of the tournament thus far (900,000) within in the first hour. He left the table for about 20 minutes after his beat, and when he returned the guy to his left asked him if he was out in the hall reading Harry Potter. Now if there is one thing I am learning about this guy- it is never EVER make fun of his Harry Potter books. Dario knocked out the wise ass sitting next him 5 hands later. All this drama, and Day 4 was only 2 hours old. Much more on this fagboy later in the blog. But right now, here is another picture of this idiot sitting at the table on Day 4. Ladies and gentlemen he wears a different scarf everyday for good luck. *F-A-G-B-O-Y*

The last four big name pros in the field:

1. Gus Hansen

- when we last left Gus he was on a roller coaster in Day 3, but ended very solid with $650,000 in chips. Gus sat down and told everyone he was gonna tighten up and protect his stack during day 4. Well if by tripling his stack and getting into the top 5 in chip counts by dinner time is called protecting your stack- then yes, Gus protected his stack very well. Gus Hansen was on fire all day and got all the way up to 1.8 million in chips. Like I said yesterday, Gus is just too reckless to make the final table and late in the night he proved me right yet again. With about 1.8 million in chips Gus entered a pot with a little 5-3. Gus loves playing out of whack hands all the time. He has banked his reputation as a guy who plays any two cards at any time. This strategy came back to bite Gus hard late in the day. Gus flopped a straight with the board coming A-2-4. The opponent bet big and Gus called. The turn card was another 4 which sparked many re-raises until Gus eventually got his opponent all-in with his flopped straight. However, Gus wasnt prepared for his opponent to turn over pocket deuces to give him a full house. Gus was drawing dead and saw his stack go from 1.8 million down to 450,000.

Gus Hansen showed why he is a professional and instead of crying about it like Phil Hellmuth or Mike Yatsco would do, he just played it out and won many big pots and got his stack back over 900,000.

*But wait a minute im listening to a live update and apparently Gus Hansen is all-in with pocket 10s...im waiting to hear what his opponent has. (im writing this live as im listening to it). GOD DAMN IT Gus's opponent has called with Pocket queens. I cant believe this, what the hell are you doing Gus. All that good playing and now your gonna be out. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!.....THE FLOP HAS COME 8-10-K!!!!! Gus Hansen has flopped a set. Yes baby the turn and river are blanks and Gus Hansen has doubled his chips. The entire crowd busted up into major roars when that 10 hit the flop. Massive cheering going on and this place is electric.

"Thats pretty fucking sick".... "God thats pretty fucking sick"

Im being told that is what Gus keeps saying to himself as he rakes in the pot and is up to 1.6 million in chips again...Drama people, Drama...WOO HOO

2. Humberto Brenes

- the same thing happened last year to this guy, nobody paid much attention to Humberto until he slowly crawled up to the top. I havent mentioned him yet in either blog, but this time we have a reason. Humberto had a short stack for pretty much the entire main event. He just kept nursing it and eventually won a big hand with pocket 4s flopping a set. However, the biggest hand came at the ESPN feature table when Humberto went up against one of the chip leaders. Humberto looked down at pocket Jacks and raised the pot. His opponent immediately put pressure on Humberto by putting him all-in preflop. Humberto thought about it for a while until he finally called and showed his Jacks. His opponent showed A-K. Before the flop was turned Humberto stood on his chair and asked the crowd who was winning the hand. The crowd replied by screaming "HUMBERTO!" The board was 2-6-3-8-10 and Humberto has doubled up and now stands at just over 1 million chips and is in the middle of the pack. BEWARE THE SHARK IS COMING! (Humberto uses a shark as a card protector and says that line every time he wins a pot.)

3. Scotty Nguyen

- "What can I say, Baby" replied Scotty when most of his fellow poker pros were in the crowd watching him play at the ESPN feature all throughout Day 4. Scotty has been a short stack all day, but every time he seems to get into danger town he keeps doubling up to stay alive. Not many reports about Scotty today, hes been playing rather tight and picking his spots to double up. Eventually Scotty is going to have to win a huge pot because odds are he wont be able to keep surviving his all-ins every few hours.

4. Huck Seed

- another player who is known for being very aggressive but has also toned it down a bit today. He said he is playing the tightest poker of his life and is just waiting for the field to trim to make his move in efforts to make the final table. These 4 guys are pretty much the last hope for any pro to make an Allen Cunningham like professional run at the final table. Another pro still alive is Chad Brown, but I am not talking about him because he is dating my girl, Vanessa Rousso, and Im not real happy about that at the moment.

Shout out to a great accomplishment:

Yesterday I got every ones attention on Hal Lubarsky who made it to Day 4 of the main event even though he is blind. He used an assistant to help him out the entire way, but saw his miracle run in this tournament come to an end today. He was brought up to the stage in the Amazon poker room and was given a huge standing ovation for his efforts and walked away with over $51,000 when it was all said and done. Great job Hal and hope to see you in the event again next year.

Back to FAGBOY:

Dario Minieri started to go on a cruise control ride through the main event as he accumulated over 2.5 million in chips towards the end of the day. But once again he must have not been able to get through an entire Harry Potter book during dinner break, and went on tilt because of it. Dario didnt have a major blow up, but lost a few solid pots and he has fallen off the radar and out of the top 25 in chips. My guess is that he will be eliminated sometime tomorrow...at least thats what im praying happens.

END OF DAY 4:

Day 4 has officially come to an end. The day ended very similar to the time it was last night as it is (3:39am ET) and tournament directors have stopped play until tomorrow. Only 118 players remain, and the plan right now is to play down to the final 27 players tomorrow.

All 4 of the big names listed above still remain in the main event with Gus Hansen being the most successful sitting with 1.7 million... good for 19th overall in the current standings. Humberto Brenes, Scotty Nguyen and Huck Seed all still remain. Some other pros, who people may not know, that are still alive are: Lee Watkinson who is 16th in chips, 2002 main event runner-up Julian Gardner who sits at 18th in chips, and also Chad Brown who is sitting nicely in the middle of the pack. Im just hoping Chad makes the final table so I can see Vanessa in the crowd live at the Final Table on Tuesday. Tomorrow will be the most important day of the main event so far. the number of players goes from 118 down to the final 3 tables of 27 people.

Here now is the official top 10 chip counts as we head into Day 5 of the main event, even though you may not know any of the guys listed below, dont worry because many of the pros are lurking... cya tomorrow

1. Dag Martin Mikkelsen
3,350,000

2. Richard Harris
2,700,000

3. Avi Cohen
2,450,000

4. Stefan Mattsson
2,350,000

5. Josh Evans
2,300,000

6. Hevad "Rain" Khan
2,300,000

7. Paul Spitzberg
2,300,000

8. Alex Kravchenko
2,250,000

9. Jeff Tunkel
2,100,000

10. Ryan Elson
2,050,000

BASIC poker KNOWLEDGE............

2007 WSOP Main Event Days 1A-1D, 2A-2B, and Day 3

Okay so for all the people who have been going nuts because I havent started my poker blog yet, you can calm down now because here it is. I decided to wait until all the remaining players were in one room to make the updates easier. The play started on July 6th with 6,358 players and first place being $8.25 million. This is down a little bit from last year, but I guess you can blame our retarded republican President for that- due to him banning all the money gambling in the states. Once again, thanks George dub-ya. However, the field was still big enough that our tournament host this year, The Rio Hotel and Casino, had to split the day 1 field up into 4 different days (Days 1A-1D) then splitting up Day 2 two different ways (Day 2A-2B). Now today is the official Day 3 of the main event with this being the first time the entire field is in the same room. But in order to get up to the end of Day 3 a lot of shit had to have happened, so here it goes:

However, before I start here is a quick advertisement, the final table will be shown live on ESPN pay per view, and its gonna be at my house this year, so anyone who wants to come over to watch just let me know...ill take all the people attending and we'll just spilt the $20 bucks it costs to order, and probably play buy-in poker all night as well. Final table is Tues. July 17th at 3pm and goes until its over (last years table took 14 hrs 26 min).

MAIN EVENT BEGINS:

The entire main event started out with Jamie Gold giving everyone the "shuffle up and deal" as each defending champion does the next year. However, that was the easy part for Gold, the hard part was just entering the Amazon Poker Room in the first place. This idiot forgot his seat card so he couldnt even enter the room without controversy. The security guard wouldnt let him into the poker room until Jamie pointed to a poster of himself in the room that showed him holding his main event bracelet from last year. "Dude, that's me on that poster," shouted Gold. The security guard eventually was told to step aside by one of the tournament directors that day. What a douche bag!

Day 1A-1D of the main event is just a minefield of people going all-in and people going out, half the field gets eliminated after all the Day 1s are over and this is where many of the pros either get huge stacks, or go out. My favorite elimination of the first day was by Jamie Gold who got knocked out at the ESPN feature table, and I cannot wait to see that on TV. Also being eliminated on Day 1 at the feature ESPN table was Phil Hellmuth. Hellmuth put every camera on him when he entered the poker room, much like Mike Gett tries to do everywhere he goes. Hellmuth came his normal 3 hours late in a stretch limo accompanied by 11 women. (One for each bracelet he has won...yes, he won his 11th bracelet earlier in the World Series this year).

2005 champion Joseph Hachem had a major scare on day 1. Towards the end of the day Hachem went all-in for his last $20,000 in chips with A-K, he was called by pocket aces. With Hachem already putting his jacket on he saw a flop 10-J-Q giving Hachem broadway on the flop. He doubled his stack and was all smiles, at least until day 2.

Many big names such as Doyle Brunson, Howard Lederer, Jennifer Harmen, Phil Gordon, Barry Greenstein, Chip Reese, Alex Jacob, Dan Harrington were eliminated on Day 1.

Now to the past champions update:

2006 champion Jamie Gold- eliminated on day 1

2005 champion Joesph Hachem- eliminated on day 2

2004 champion Greg Raymer- eliminated on day 1

2003 champion Chris Moneymaker- eliminated on day 2

2000 champion Chris Fergueson- eliminated on day 3

Way to go big guys...

Some past champions who are still alive:

2002 champion Robert Varkoyni- (200,000 chips)

2001 champion Carlos Mortensen- (400,000 chips)

Updates on two of my favorite players, Allen Cunningham and Daniel Negraneau:

Allen Cunningham made a solid chip stack around 75,000 at the end of day 1 and was smooth sailing in day 2. Cunningham entered a pot in the middle of day 2 holding cards of 6-3 from the small blind. The big blind checked with K-J. The flop comes K-6-3 which was a beautiful flop for Cunningham. Cunningham bet strong on the flop and after the turn card which was a 5. The river brought a Jack giving Cunningham's opponent a better two pair. Cunningham bet strong again and watched his opponent move all-in which was enough to put Cunningham all-in. Cunningham went into the tank for a while then made the call and was disappointed to see he was beaten and his WSOP was over. Wasnt meant to be for Cunningham this year, but probably nothing will ever beat his amazing 4th place finish at the main event last year.

Daniel Negraneau had a dominant day 1, but had half the population hating him. This is because he knocked out 5 woman on the day including big names of Sussie Issacs, and Barbara Enright. Daniel was up to a massive day 1 stack of 150,000 chips. He was at the ESPN feature table all day on day 2 until he played his final hand merely minutes before Day 2 was supposed to end. Daniel had 10-8 of spades (he loves playing suited connectors in any position). The flop came 8-7-6 rainbow. Daniel bet out and his opponent re-raised him all-in. Much like Cunningham, Daniel waited a long time before finally calling...he slammed the felt when his opponent turned over pocket 8s. Daniel was drawing to just a 9 that never came and he was knocked out late last night.

Now on to everything that happened on Day 3, which was today:

Starting Day 3 the chip leader was Gus Hansen, which made me very happy. If im ordering the WSOP on pay per view, I am dying to see just one pro at the table. It was Allen Cunningham making a run last year, so maybe Gus Hansen will be the guy this year. However as reckless as Gus is with his chips, I cant see him surviving all the way to the final table. Gus being chip leader is very fitting considering he played on Day 1D which was the most crowded, so crowded that they didnt have enough tables that could fit in the poker room, so Gus Hansen and his table along with 2 other tables were playing out in the hall of the casino.

"It felt like playing poker in a dark and cold prison, but at least we were right next to bathroom so I never had to wait in line during the breaks," Gus stated with a laugh.

Gus was on a roller coaster all day long proving my statement that he is just too reckless to get to the final table. He started at 600,000 in chips, went all the way down to under 300,000 but then worked his way back up to 650,000 by the time dinner hit on Day 3.

WHO NEEDS ALL THE SENSES TO WIN?:

Hal Lubarsky is playing in this years main event and has survived into Day 4 of the championship. Usually this would be no big deal as another amateur is doing well and advancing rather far. However its an absolutely amazing accomplishment for Hal because he is blind. He has an assistant sitting next to him whispering him his cards, telling him what player bet, and stacking his chips for him. I will definitely be keeping a close eye (no pun intended) on Hal in the days to come to see just how far this guy can go. Normally I would say that he can SEE the final table from here, but that would just be lying. God I am going to hell immediately. GO HAL!

THE MONEY:

The top 621 players are getting paid at this years main event and Day 3 we hit that cut-off. Another record went down this year as the field became so tight when they got 1 player away from the money that it took over 2 hours between the 623rd and 622nd place finisher. After the money on day 3 there are still a solid amount of big name players left, im still praying my ass off for one of these players to make the final table:

Robert Varkonyi, Nick Binger, Mimi Tran, Fabrice Soulier, Shirley Williams, Kenny Tran, Sully Erna, Sam Simon, Chris Gregorian, Tobey Maguire, Robert Mizrachi, Pamela Brunson, Kenny Tran Thor Hansen, Leif Force, Chip Jett, Huck Seed, Scotty Nguyen, Carlos Mortensen, Gus Hansen, Humberto Brenes, and Todd Brunson.

Our First Million Dollar Man:

Day 3 saw the first player hit the million chip mark at this years World Series... Kenny Tran who is one of those big names mentioned above hit the 1 million chip mark and took over the chip lead late in day 3. He was shortly passed up by Dario Minieri who accumulated a huge pot putting his stack at 1.45 million.

(And right as I am typing this my computer has dinged and the update says that Todd Brunson has just been knocked out, this eliminates another big name player and eliminates any chance of Todd and Doyle being the first ever father-son combination to win the main event, maybe now Todd can go get a haircut).



But back to Dario Minieri, he has been reported as being a Harry Potter freak. Not only does this kid dress up like Harry Potter, but he has also been reading the Harry Potter books during the breaks and memorizing lines and saying them to his opponent during a hand. I got nothing against Harry Potter but I am NOT watching a god damn Harry Potter nerd at the final table this year, but right now he is establishing a Jamie Gold-like chip stack at the end of Day 3. Probably the most important feature that I failed to mention, and the number 1 reason that this kid is a faggot is because he wears a god damn scarf when he is playing. Mike Hallock if you are reading this, then you are definitely rooting for this guy to hold on to his lead and win the main event. God I hate this kid.

Day 3 has just ended rather early tonight (about 3:45am ET) and there are now only 398 players remaining, and most of the big names listed above have survived and are thriving.... Gus Hansen, Carlos Mortensen, Kenny Tran, Huck Seed, and Humberto Brenes (and his shark) all have very solid chip counts and are in contention. One celebrity remains after 3 days and that is Mr. Spiderman himself, Tobey Maguire. Now for the top 5 chip counts heading into Day 4 tomorrow....

1. Dario Minieri: $2.4 million
2. Kenny Tran: $1.3 million
3. Robert Nehorayan: $1.22 million
4. Jeff Banghart: $1,2 million
5. Jeff Weiss: $1.2 million

Po's World Series updates will now occur every single night until the main event ends, Day 4 blog will come out right when Day 4 is over, etc.

LIVE FINAL TABLE-

TUESDAY JULY 17th 3pm @ Po's poor house

BASIC poker KNOWLEDGE...........