World Series of Poker catch-up

I know the November Nine is underway as we speak but I'm doing my best to stay off Twitter and Poker News so I don't hear what happens. I don't have Foxtel which shows the World Series in Australia and have been so busy of late that I hadn't been watching online.

I had a poker weekend, without actually playing that much. I started watching the Main Event on youtube on Friday and pretty spent all weekend catching up on the action. I also had my first "poker wedding" on Saturday. No, not a poker themed wedding, but two poker friends that got married, so the only other people I knew at the wedding were also poker players/friends.

Anyway, as for the Main Event, I'm now half-way through Day 7 so I'm not far from the end. I'm not sure if I should be surprised but the first few days was so focussed on the big name live pros in the field. Despite being a chipleader on day 4, Tony "Bond18" Dunst only got a brief mention in the coverage and wasn't sighted until day 5. Nick "MI_Turtle" Rainey also came in to the coverage on day 5 sitting at one of the feature tables. I didn't realise Christian Harder was still in the tournament as I swear he was first sighted late in day 5 or early in day 6.

Its fair to say that Tony Dunst stole the show over the last few days. Not so much for his play, but for his trademark suit, cool demeanor and his working of the room (read: the ladies near his rail). Bond's charming style won over Norman Chad and Lon McEachern and after his performance on the coverage, it was no surprise that he was picked to be the new correspondent for the WPT. Unfortunately Dunst couldn't make it to the November Nine, but he'll be seeing plenty of face time on poker TV from now on.

I'm off to Longreach (outback Australia) on Wednesday so it could be possible to miss the Main Event winner, if so I can watch it without knowing the result when I get back on Saturday. Let's see how it goes.

Main Event update

Work's not crazy busy at the moment so I have been following closely the World Series of Poker updates on Poker News and Twitter.

One of my friends who I play with in the APL actually won his way in to the main event but wasn't able to make it past day 2. Apparently he ran kings in to aces and pocket 2's ... yes, you guessed it, the 2's won the hand with quads.

Plenty of the big names have already fallen but for me its great to see so many of the guys I follow online doing so well. Nick Rainey (MI_turtle) is leading the way and was one of the top 3 stacks for much of day 3. Tony Dunst (Bond18), Alex Fitzgerald (Assassinato) and Jay Rosenkrantz (pr1nnyraid) are all still in the running and all have good stacks going in to day 4. My fingers are crossed for all of them and hopefully they can make it through to day 5.

Most of the "live" players that I'm a fan of have been knocked out already. Kenny Tran was the last man standing but got knocked out late on day 4 after flopping top set.

The story of the day tho was the run of two-time champ, Johnny Chan. It would be GREAT for poker if he can make it deep in this tournament. There's 1240 players left and we don't even reach the money until we're left with 747.

Pass the Sugar

I finished reading Joe Hachem's "Pass the Sugar" autobiography last night. I'm happy to admit I'm a fan of Joe and what he's done for the Australian poker scene. I enjoyed The Poker Star and I enjoyed reading his book, its a good insight in to the man, where he came from and what happened to his life after winning the WSOP Main Event.

One of my favourite lines from the book comes from the co-author Peter Ralph. In the Afterword, he tells a story about how Joe explained the skill level in poker:

"Pete, if we played a hand now you could beat me, and you may even get lucky over fifteen minutes and if you got really lucky you might even be ahead after half an hour. However if we played for four hours I'd own your house, your car and all of your bank accounts"

LOL, typical Joe confidence ...

World Series of Poker update

We're now midway through day 5 in the World Series of Poker and with 232 players remaining out of the 6494 starters, one of Assassinato's mates Matt Affleck currently leads the field.

The poker community would love for one of the big name pros to take down the Main Event and this year there are a number still in contention. Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier has been at the top of the leader board for the last few days and is currently in the top 20 while my boys Joe Hachem and Kenny Tran aren't far behind. Phil Ivey is also roughly midfield and has plenty of time to make a move.

From last year's Main Event, Dennis Phillips and defending champion Peter Eastgate are both still well in the hunt.