Pokerblog – 2005 July

J Santos hasn’t turned up yet but we did get an envelope with a Muck-It cartoon. Hopefully, Santos will continue his journey north and should be back drawing and drinking here in Las Vegas. His extended “vacation” down south is finally over and he’s anxious to get back to work (read he’s broke). He is going to paint a couple of outdoor wall murals (his murals often look more like graffiti than fine art) so hopefully he will be around throught the end of the year. He also is considering a new group of painted carved wood cats. The guy is also a somewhat gifted carver and occasionally he paints a retablo or two. He’s been working on some secret carving for the past year; but, I haven’t seen it yet so don’t know what he’s doing.

Posted by flipchipro at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading the post below makes poker journalism sound like a real job. Twenty straight hours, many within the confines of a static automobile trapped in an ocean of motionless autos and then hurtling white knuckled through an overheated desert in the middle of the night. The return to Las Vegas requires driving creeping across the full breadth of LA and then out into the mostly empty landscape of the Mojave Desert for another two and a half hundred miles. Plenty of time to consider the pros and cons of Leaving Los Angeles. I have taken note of my happiness when I’m on my way back to Las Vegas and listed the top reasons for this happiness knowing I’m putting LA miles behind. This week’s Nines…

Top Nine reasons you’re happy to be leaving Los Angeles

9. Cheaper gasoline, instead of the high LA price of $3.00, Vegas is only $2.99+9/10.

8. Vegas hookers are running a month-long “half-off if you bring a friend” promo.

7. Smoking indoors is legal.

6. Vegas card rooms give you free booze.

5. The Circus-Circus buffet.

4. Great weather, no rain, just one glorious 120 degree day after another and plenty of sunshine, too.

3. Playing friendly, relaxing high stakes poker with Doyle and the gang.

2. No more earthquakes.

1. You’re going to Vegas!

Posted by flipchipro at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A quick road trip to Los Angeles yesterday didn’t end until early this morning. I finally got home to find the broadband connection had gone south, the reason for the lateness of this post. The hours of driving in a continuous stream of traffic from Vegas to LA and return combined with many more hours of sitting in LA’s infamous traffic reminds me that following the poker tournament crowd around is sometimes not all that great. The Poker Prof and I had to go to Hollywood Park Casino, home of Poker Player Newspaper, so this was business instead of pleasure. Of course, another side effect from the trip resulted from spending too many hours in the car listening to the Prof’s apparently infinite knowledge of poker trivia. Did you know poker is a “vying game” originally played with a twenty card deck in the early eighteen hundreds? Do you want to know?

I am always surprised at the number of poker players at the Hollywood Park Casino even though I know they are drawing from a pool of more than twenty million people practically within walking distance. Hundreds of seated players and a waiting list keep the tables full of hopefuls, even on a slow Thursday afternoon. A far cry from the “old days,” when I first visited the LA card clubs during my tenure with the Army as a draftee in training for a Southeast Asia vacation. The card clubs were small and the clientele was hardcore local.

The deck was passed around the table so the players had to deal the cards. This arrangement provided the locals with a double threat on your money, you could not only go broke from bad play but bad dealing. Most of the players were older than my grandparents and included a high percentage of lacquered blue haired ladies, the perfect compliment to the comb-over men. Your cards were hard to see through the thick smoke. Everyone smoked, often having more than one cigarette fired up; probably a result of Alzheimer, a word that hadn’t come along yet.

I managed to befriend one of the old guys and would spend hours listening to his stories of wins, bad beats, cheating and parking lot violence. He was the first person to offer me any practical advice in defense of the cheating that was commonplace in all of the California card clubs then. As I remember, they called him the “Major,” so I assumed he was retired military spending his golden years adding second hand smoke to his long list of life’s hazards. His passion was making the trek North to Las Vegas to play in the “real poker games” at the few Vegas casinos that offered live poker. He also told me that the Las Vegas crowd was the toughest bunch in the world to beat, something that he did so infrequently he could relate every detail of his few winning sessions. He also told me that I played so badly I didn’t have a pray of winning at the LA clubs, much less in Vegas. In fact, I still remember him telling me, “Remember the toughest virgin in your high school class? Well, go home because you have a much better shot at scoring with her than winning here.” OK, enough of the good old days, apparently going to LA makes me regress to a much crazier era. Now that I think about it, the old days just weren’t that good. I am always happy to see the lights of the modern Las Vegas and to be a part of the incredible evolution of the poker industry.

Las Vegas is currently offering one of the oldest established poker tournaments in Las Vegas, the Orlean’s Open. The tournament is winding down its 2005 run for a big finish on Sunday with the Championship No-limit Hold’em event. Satellites are offered though out the day and a second chance No-limit Hold’em event goes every evening at 7:00 for a buy-in of $125.

Posted by flipchipro at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Flipchip and I went back downtown to the Plaza for the final table of the Ultimate Poker Challenge. The buy-in was $10K and 55 players entered. At stake was $167,500 for first place and the coveted gold bracelet. There were plenty of top pros in the tournament and the final table was filled with some familiar names and faces.

Here’s the Final Table Seating & Chip Counts:

Seat 1: Andy Bloch $305K
Seat 2: Blair Rodman $169K
Seat 3: Scott Fischman $139K
Seat 4: Senthil Kumar $331K
Seat 5: Mike Wattel $351K
Seat 6: Chau Giang $234K
Seat 7: Ted Forrest $124K

Here are some random facts about the final table players:

• Andy Bloch had three final table appearances last year at the UPC with one victory. This was his second final table for this season’s UPC. Andy also won one of the Rio WSOP circuit events.

• Blair Rodman has a book coming out titled Kill Phil. It’s about beating top pros in tournament poker.

• Scott Fischman cashed in two WSOP events including a second place finish in the $1500 NL event.

• Ted Forrest won the PPT event #1 at the Mirage. He also came in 2nd at the last WPT event also held at the Mirage.

• Senthil Kumar has 3 cashes at this year’s WSOP and has made one final table on the WPT.

• Chau Giang is a former cook who plays in “The Big Game” with Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Chip Reese, and Bobby Baldwin. He plays around 85 hours of poker a week.

The action went fast even though the tournament directors raised the levels from one hour to ninety minutes. The format of the tournament was seven-handed tables which pleased a lot of players. “Seven-handed is great,” said Any Bloch. “I prefer short-handed events. You get to play more hands and the action is faster. More tournaments should be short-handed.”

Ted Forrest was the first player eliminated from the final table. All the money went into the pot before the flop. Ted had A-Q and Chau Giang showed A-K. Ted Forrest won $21,500 for 7th place. Scott Fischman was the next player busted when his pocket Kings ran into Blair Rodman’s A-A. Fischman won $27,100 for 6th place. Senthil Kumar was the next player knocked out. He won $32,500 for 5th place when his A-9 lost to Blair Rodman’s A-Q.Mike Wattel was eliminated just as his girlfriend Cyndy Violette arrived to cheer him on from the rail. On a flop of 7s-6s-6c, Wattel check-raised Andy Bloch, who thought for a second and then moved all in. Wattel called. Andy showed A-7 for two pair and Mike had As-8s for just the nut flush draw. Wattel picked up a straight draw on the turn but the river was a blank. Mike Wattel was eliminated in 4th place and he won $44,300. Andy Bloch had a commanding chip lead with over $1.1M. Chau was second with $307K and Blair Rodman had $205K.

Chau Giang and his pocket Kings doubled up against Blair Rodman’s A-8, but he would be knocked out by Andy Bloch soon after. Shortstacked, Chau Giang moved all in with K-J and Andy Bloch flipped over A-J. Bloch’s hand held up and Chau won $54,600 for 3rd place.

When play reached heads up, Andy had $1.4M in chips to Blair Rodman’s $206K. Andy aggressively went after Rodman’s stack. Whenever Rodman bet it seemed that Andy went over the top. Eventually, Rodman had next to nothing and he moved all in preflop with 9-4. Andy Bloch called with J-4 and his hand held up. Blair Rodman won $100,750 for second place. Andy won $167,500 for first place and the UPC gold bracelet.

“I think this win makes me about even after all the World Series of Poker buy-ins,” Andy joked.

It was a pleausre to see a great guy like Andy Bloch win the UPC main event. It seemed like he played in almost every WSOP event and with only one cash in the Pot Limit Hold’em event. Congrats again to Andy!

Posted by Dr. Pauly at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A little late, I know. But better late than never that you check out Bill’s post on rating yourself as a poker player, Wicked Chops Poker’s write-up of poker haters, and the Pundit’s advice on when to chop in a tourney. Also, be sure to swing on over to the new PokerFilter.net and join the fun.

Posted by at 4:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

21 players returned to action on Day 2 of the the $10K Ultimate Poker Challenge no limit main event, which was held at the Plaza Casino in downtown Las Vegas. Players begin with $30K in chips and levels are 60 minutes in length. The action is seven handed which is a unique twist to this year’s event. In all, 55 players started on Monday and they competed for a prize pool worth over $540K. Erik Seidel ended Day 1 as the chip leader with $180,900 and Chau Giang was a close second.

Here’s who survived the first day: Blair Rodman, Scott Fischman, Gavin Smith, Joe Bartholdi, Senthil Kumar, Ted Forrest, James English, Erick Lindgren, Andy Bloch, William Rockwell, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, David Plastik, Mike Wattel, John Juanda, Cyndy Violette, Ray Faltinsky, David Levi, Minh Ly, and Cary Katz.

Notable bustouts on Day 1 included: David Williams, Chris Jesus Ferguson, Layne Flack, Kevin “The Man” Chan, and Dennis Ethier.

Here’s the payout structure:

1st = $167,500

2nd = $100,750

3rd = $54,600

4th = $44,300

5th = $32,500

6th = $27,100

7th = $21,500

8th = $18,300

9th = $15,200

10th and 11th = $13,500

12th – 14th = $11,000

Early on The Grinder and Minh Ly were embroiled in a heads up battle. Minh Ly won the first with 5-5 versus The Grinder’s A-Q. The Grinder did much better the second time when his Hilton Sisters held up against A-5. Minh Ly was eventually eliminated by David Levi. Erik Seidel’s stack took a hit when he doubled up David Plastik on the featured TV table. Chau Giang slipped into the chiplead. Andy Bloch doubled up and cracked Minh Ly’s pocket aces when he rivered a straight. Cyndy Violette won a race with the Hilton’s against Gavin Smith’s A-K.

David Levi knocked out William Rockwell in 16th place. Levi flopped a flush with A6s and cracked Rockwell’s Hilton Sisters despite flopping a set. Rockwell could not pair the board or catch the case Queen and he was eliminated. The fact that William Rockwell is playing poker at all is an amazing story. He played in the WSOP too, despite losing the use of both his arms. He had a busty blonde counting his chips and doing the betting for him. During his exit interview Rockwell said he didn’t feel sad about getting bad beated, “I’m so lucky to be here and I outlasted some of the best players in the world.” Even David Levi came over and gave him an apologetic big hug.

Ted Forrest doubled up Erik Seidel and The Grinder just before David Levi bubbled out in 15th place. The Grinder was the next one busted in 14th place, followed by John Juanda in 13th. The UPC and the Plaza pays the players in casino chips. John Juanda walked over the the craps table and bet on a few throws. When Erick Lindgren was busted a few minutes later, he ran over to the craps table shouting “I’m coming to save Juanda!” The two played craps for a few minutes before they walked over to the cage and cashed out.

David Plastik was knocked out in 11th when his A-Q ran into Chau Giang’s pocket Queens. Andy Bloch doubled up against Gavin Smith, and then let Eirk Seidel double up against him. Bloch was left with a short stack. Chau Giang and Scott Fischman went heads up in a big pot. With 7-7, Chau flopped a set. He got all his money in the pot on the turn when an ace fell. Fischman called and showed pocket aces to double up.

Gavin Smith finished in 10th place and at the dinner break, Mike Wattel was the chip leader with 9 players remaining. After dinner, Cyndy Violette was knocked out by Sentil Kumar. Cyndy had A-8 and Kumar had K-8. The both checked on a flop of Q-8-8 and all the money went in on the turn. Kumar caught a King on the river to knocked out Cyndy Violette in 9th place. That hand pushed Sentil Kumar into the chip lead.

Andy Bloch’s A-K lost to Scott Fischman’s J-10 when Fischman rivered a straight on Bloch. Chau Giang doubled up against Fischman when he won a coin flip. Chau eventually knocked out Erik Seidel in 8th place. Seidel moved all in with Q-10 and Chau’s A-8 held up. Erik Seidel started the day as the chip leader and missed the final table by one spot. Mike Wattel ended day 2 as the chip leader.

End of Day 2 Chip Counts:

1. Mike Wattel $351K
2. Senthil Kumar $331K
3. Andy Bloch $305K
4. Chau Giang $234K
5. Blair Rodman $169K
6. Scott Fischman $139K
7. Ted Forrest $124K

The final seven players will return to the Plaza at 2pm on Wednesday for the completion of the UPC Main Event. First place will win $167,500 and the prestigious gold bracelet.

Posted by Dr. Pauly at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The World Series of Poker television series broadcast on ESPN offers the second installment of the 2005 season on Tuesday, July 26. This week’s show features the final table from Harrah’s Atlantic City Casino, a regular stop on the World Series of Poker Circuit tour. Ten events were played at the Harrah’s earlier this year with the tenth event being the $10,000 Championship. The final event attracted 249 players and accumulated a prize pool of $2,365,500. The winner received $780,615 and one of the gold WSOP Circuit Champion rings. The complete results for every event of this World Series of Poker Circuit tournament are available at Poker Player Newspaper.

Tuesday evening’s final table will feature the follow players listed with their finish, hometown and the prize money received.

1. Nghi Van Tran Toronto, Canada $780,615
2. Erick Lindgren Las Vegas, NV $430,521
3. Nick Frangos Mays Landing, NJ $236,550
4. Mimi Tran Torrance, CA $189,240
5. Aaron Bartley Cary, NC $141,930
6. Stan Goldstein Cypress, CA $118,275
7. Chad Brown Los Angeles, CA $94,620
8. Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson Pacific Palisades, CA $70,965
9. Michael Esposito Seaford, NY $47,310

Winner, Nghi Van Tran, of Toronto, Canada walked away with the top prize of $780,615, and a WSOP Circuit ring in his first ever win or cash in a major poker tournament. Two other final table players, Aaron Bartley and Michael Esposito, will remember this event as their first ever cash in a major tournament. The remainder of the field is another who’s who list of poker players with well known professional player, Erick Lindgren, taking the second spot and $430,521. The only female to make the table, Mimi Tran, a tough professional out of California. Stan Goldstein, another solid pro from California, lasted into the sixth spot to collect $118,275. The 2004 Ultimate Poker Challenge on-air host, Chad Brown, finished in seventh place to receive $94,620 while the always familiar professional, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson takes $70,965 back to California for his eighth place effort.

The show promises to offer some exciting poker from some of the sport’s best known professionals. Tune in at 8:00 Eastern time (be sure to check the schedule for broadcast times in your area) for all the action and to learn how the top players play. The ESPN WSOP TV series will continue with WSOP Circuit events through late August, then the 2005 World Series of Poker events will begin airing. I was there for all of the final tables at the 2005 WSOP and am anxiously awaiting the telecast with the hole card cameras to answer some lingering “did they have it?” questions. Prior to each week’s show we will provide links to the event article we ran on LasVegasVegas along with a link to Dr. Pauly’s live blog of the same. Have your computer handy during the 2005 World series of Poker broadcast for a total WSOP event experience.

Elsewhere on the net:
Pokerati.com – Poker News
Party Poker Blogs – Uber Poker Posts
Noble Poker – Play Poker Online
In addition Noble will be running an interesting competition starting on Aug. 1st.

From the Press Release:

The first player who wins 7 consecutive $10 Sit & Go tournaments will walk away with a cool million!As with our other Jackpot Sit ‘n’ Go tournaments, there are additional prizes to be won:
Win 6 tournaments in a row and you’ll get $75K!
Win 5 consecutive tournaments and we’ll pay you $25K
Finish in one of the top 2 positions of this tournament 5 consecutive times and you’ll take an easy $300.
Noble Poker’s Million Dollar Sit & Go Challenge will start on August 1st.
For further information about the Million Dollar challenge click here.

Posted by flipchipro at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Ultimate Poker Challenge continues the 2005 series at the Plaza Hotel in downtown Las Vegas. Most of the information we linked to in the previous article about the Ultimate Poker Challenge is incorrect. The tournament no longers follows a points system for entry into the semi-final event since the players apparently hated it. In fact, there is not a semi-final event. The 17 episode series concludes it’s run with a $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em event currently scheduled to begin at noon on Tuesday, July 26th. I will be there on Tuesday to cover the event through the camera lens while Dr. Pauly will be providing coverage from the computer keyboard. He may live blog the event or not, probably depending on the number of names that come to play, it’s his call.

I anticipate a good turn out of professional players for this one. They have already been playing in the daily events and making final tables since they are guartanteed an opportunity to be on national TV and make some money. This combination is proving to be a good drawing card. The final championship event with a $10K entry fee should have many of the local players, wannabee out-of-towners and traveling professionals seated when the cards fly on Tuesday. We covered the 2004 Ultimate Poker Challenge last year and came away with enough photos to populate a permanent UPC photo gallery. The 2005 Ultimate Poker Challenge overlapped the WSOP so we missed some of the first events but our “Ace crew” will be there for the big one.

While on the subject of poker tournament photo galleries we are very close to calling the 2005 WSOP Photo Gallery finished. Our largest photo gallery to date with over a thousand photographs of the forty-plus days of the World Series of Poker so you’ll need some time to browse this one. Our cameras were there to document the “big show” three days before the first card went into the air; even before the Pavilion room was converted into the world’s largest poker tournament facility. We then continued with our coverage everyday shooting the events and we provided photos of all 42 event winners’ which we published only moments after the final hand of the final table.

More than a hundred million dollars was paid out to 2005 WSOP players, making it the richest sporting event ever. The LasVegasVegas 2005 WSOP team provided readers with an instant and continuous window to all the action through Dr. Pauly’s live blogging complete with Flipchip’s just taken photos of all the action. Complete stats of all the WSOP events are available at Poker Player Newspaper. While Pauly and I were providing live coverage the PokerProf was directing the action and he also found time to revise Bob Ciaffone’s latest Robert’s Rules of Poker version 6 into a web-friendly document. The Poker Prof alone with Shawn of Lord Admiral Card Club Radio
interviewed Bob Ciaffone on this week’s installment of Lord Admiral Radio.

A final note for today, we have re-established contact with J. Santos and believe he is in transit from points south so are hopeful that he will have a new batch of Muck-It Cartoons that we may publish. The Top Nine List will also return in the near future.

Posted by flipchipro at 3:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2004 World Series of Poker DVD Set

The Product: Three DVDs’ with the same 2004 episodes that aired on ESPN during the past year. Each episode is a DVD chapter so getting to an exact point during an episode can be a bit tricky. The bonus features includes some brief (but interesting) interviews on strategy with top name professional poker players. Included on the DVD set is a couple of Greg Raymer pieces and a bonus short piece on the late Stu Ungar.

The Good: It’s ESPN, and that means top notch production quality. Great sound, great video and good lighting. From interviews to extra’s, it’s an enjoyable viewing.

The Bad: It’s the television episodes… so if you’ve TiVoed it there will be almost nothing new. The episodes are each their own chapter without any episode indexing. This can make it difficult to find a certain segment or a particular hand. Somehow it left me wanting more since I had already seen all the ESPN WSOP episodes.

The Bottom Line: For poker aficionado’s that missed the ESPN series of the 2004 World Series of Poker this is a must buy. It is also an important piece of poker history that you can relive anytime at your leisure and iut provides a convenient method of researching the play of a particular professional player. It makes an ideal gift for any poker enthusist. I rate the 2004 World Series of Poker DVD Set a good buy.-PokerProf

You should be reading:
OddJack
Byron Liggett
Amy Calistri

Posted by pokerprof at 3:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Ultimate Poker Challenge is into the final days of the 2005 tournaments at the Plaza Hotel in downtown Las Vegas. The events, seventeen in all, will finish on July 27th. The Ultimate Poker Challenge works on a points system to qualify players for entry into the semi-final event, an explanation of which can be found here. Only those players that qualified through points awarded according to finish can play in the semi-final event. You can’t buy into this one. A complete schedule of events and buy-ins are available here.

The Ultimate Poker Challenge scheduled the events to coincide with the “other tournament” going on here in Las Vegas, the 2005 World Series of Poker. This is the second season of the UPC at the Plaza and one of the major attractions is the opportunity to get on national television since the final table for all events is filmed for broadcast. Seventeen opportunities to win one of the seven seats at a final televised table attracts many of the pros already in town for the other tournaments.

I finally had the time to stop by the Plaza and check out the action this week. I had just come from the strip where I had been shooting photos of the heads-up play at the Bellagio Challenge Cup’s final table between Amnon Filippi and Quinn Do. Shortly after I arrived at the Plaza in walks Amnon just minutes from his $362,400 victory at the Bellagio to a round of congratulations from the players waiting for the UPC final table to begin.

The final tables began play at 2:00 pm and unlike the all night final tables at the WSOP it was over and had crowned Mike “the Grinder” Mirazchi as the champion before dark. Spectators are invited and welcomed to fill the audience seats. You are provided a great view quite close to the final table live action with an added bonus of perhaps seeing yourself on TV. The final table for event #13, a $3,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em tournament, was a star studded affair that included Kathy Leibert, T.J. Cloutier, Scott Fischman and Michael Mizrachi. Rick Fuller, Michael Wood and David Singer completed the seven players surviving to the final table. Well known professional players make the Ultimate Poker Challenge a “don’t miss” opportunity to see and be close to your favorites.

The order of finish and payouts for event #13 follows:

1. Michael “Grinder” Mizrachi $41,905
2. Kathy Liebert $20,955
3. Rick Fuller $12,570
4. Michael Wood $10,475
5. T.J. Cloutier $ 7,335
6. Scott Fischman $ 6,285
7. David Singer $ 5,240

Additional photos from teh Ultimate poker Challenge at teh Plaza in downtown Las Vegas are available by clicking on the continue reading below.

Additional photos taken at the Plaza’s Ultimate Poker Challenge.

Kathy Leibert at the UPC final table.

T.J. Cloutier at the UPC final table.

The audience view of the final table of event #13.

The audience gets into the action.

Posted by flipchipro at 4:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Despite the intense heat wave in Las Vegas, Flipchip and I headed back to the Bellagio poker room to cover the second part of the final table for the Bellagio Challenge Cup. 97 players bought in on Monday for $10K and the event featured some of the best players in the world including T.J. Cloutier, Erik Seidel, Scotty Nguyen, Allen Cunningham, Cyndy Violette, and John Juanda.

We wandered over to catch part two of the final table… a heads up battle between 2005 WSOP bracelet winner Quinn Do and Amnon Filippi. Both players agreed to chop the prize money ($364,200 for first and $228,850 for second) and they played for the prestigious Challenge Cup including the $25K seat at the WPT Championships, which will be held next year at the Bellagio.

Amnon Filippi started the day the chipleader with a little over $1.1M. Quinn Do had about $775K. Their heads up match was quicker than expected. It lasted about a half hour. Quinn Do raised preflop and Filippi called. Quinn got all his money in on the turn with A-K. The board was 8-3-3-J. Amnon had 5c-3c and flopped trips. He smooth called Quinn’s bet and went over the top on the turn. Since Quinn was pot committed, he moved all in for the rest of his chips. Amnon Filippi took down the pot and won the Challenge Cup. When he took pictures, they dumped some of the chips into the actual cup. Too bad they didn’t fill it with champagne. Scott Fischman, Paul Darden and his wife were all on the rail watching the completion of the event.

I spoke to Quinn Do afterwards and he seemed pretty down about second place. He’s going to return to Seattle with a WSOP bracelet but he really wanted to win this event, especially because some of the best players in the world were in the tournament.

“It’s a mind game,” he explained to me about the intricacies of heads up play.

When I asked him how he thought Tobey Maguire played in the Challenge Cup, he responded, “I’ve played in tournaments against him in L.A. and he’s a very solid player. He needs to be more aggressive. But he is solid.”

I spoke for a while with Charlie Shoten. He won the $500 daily tournament yesterday and was playing again. He’s a really great guy and it’s been cool to get to know him a lot better since I moved to Las Vegas. If you get a chance, you should pick up a copy of Charlie’s Book… No Limit Life. Flipchip took most of the pictures and even yours truly made it in there!

I also saw Daniel Negreanu yapping with Johnny World Hennigan out front of the poker room, while the ever lively Bob Stupak shuffled by. Unfortunately, there were no Liz Lieu or Carmel sightings while I was there. Yeah, I stuck around and played $8/16 for 5+ hours and held my own.

Posted by Dr. Pauly at 1:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We happily returned to the poker room at the Bellagio to cover the final table of the $10K buy in Bellagio Challenge Cup. On Monday, 97 players started with $20K in chips. Action on Wednesday resumed at Noon with the final nine players. Everyone at the final table made the prize money. Also at stake was the infamous Challenge Cup and a $25K seat in the 2006 WPT Championships that will be held at the Bellagio next Spring. 2005 WSOP bracelet winner Quinn Do ended Day 2 as the chip leader.

Here’s the final table participants including chipcounts:

Seat 1: Fuat Can (Linkoping, Sweden) $47,900
Seat 2: Tobey Maguire (Los Angeles, CA) $68,500
Seat 3: Jeff Shulman (Las Vegas, NV) $190,300
Seat 4: Quinn Do (Seattle, WA) $494,000
Seat 5: Scotty Nguyen (Henderson, NV) $377,000
Seat 6: Amnon Filippi (New York, NY) $362,100
Seat 7: Chad Layne (Las Vegas, NV) $40,800
Seat 8: Sam Grizzle (Las Vegas, NV) $214,200
Seat 9: Mimi Tran (Los Angeles, CA) $146,900

Here are the payouts for the Bellagio Challenge Cup:

1st $364,200 plus a $25K seat at the WPT Championships in 2006
2nd $228,850
3rd $119,000
4th $64,075
5th $59,345
6th $41,195
7th $32,040
8th $22,885
9th $18,310

Chad Layne was the first player eliminated from the final table. He finished in 9th place when Amnon Filippi’s pocket eights won a coin flip against him. A few hands later, I saw Sam Grizzle crack Amnon’s pocket aces when he rivered two pair on Amnon. I also witnessed Tobey Maguire show a little emotion as he cracked a smile when tripled up. His moved all in with A-Q and beat out Scotty Nguyen’s pocket tens and Mimi Tran.

Eventually Tobey Maguire was knocked out when his pocket aces were cracked by Fuat Can’s pocket tens. Can caught a runner-runner straight to send Maguire home in 8th place. Tobey Maguire played well against some of the top names in poker and even though the field was small, he outlasted several top names.

Scotty Nguyen lost a big hand to Amnon Filippi, only to be finished off by him a few hands later. Scotty’s AJs did not beat out Amnon’s Q-Q and Scotty finished in 7th place. Amnon Filippi must like the Hilton Sisters. They held up against Sam Grizzle’s A-J and he knocked out Grizzle in 6th place. At that point, Filippi moved into the chip lead.

Mimi Tran was busted in 5th place when her A-3 ran into Fuat Can’s K7s. She led all the way until the river until Can picked up two pair and eliminated her. Jeff “Happy” Shulman finished in 4th place when his QJs lost to Amnon Filippi’s pocket Kings.

Fuat Can, Quinn Do, and Amnon Filippi played three-way for over two hours before someone was knocked out. Fuat Can was the short stack for most of that time and Quinn Do and Filippi both had about the same amount in chips. Unfortunately Fuat Can was the guy who was eliminated in 3rd place when his Q-10 lost to Filippi’s K-Q. At that point both players decided to stp playing. When they left the Bellagio, Quinn Do was in second place with $775K. Amnon Filippi had over $1.1M in chips. Action resumes Thursday at Noon.

Some Bellagio side notes:

I was bored with the slow pace of the final table and played some more $4/8 Hold’em with tourists. I saw Linda from Poker Works playing $15/$30 and contemplated a jump into those murky waters. The highlight of my session was discovering that my pocket aces held up in a 6 way pot! One chick was tilting so hard at my table that she ran through five hundred inside of an hour on a $4/$8 table.

There was a token Liz Lieu sighting when she took time away from her game in the high limit room and stopped by to cheer on her friend Quinn Do.

I also never saw Flipchip so excited after he ran over to tell me that was recognized by a fan of his photography. There aren’t any photos of him on the web so he was shocked that someone noticed him. Anyway, he was snapping photos when some guy on the rail asked him who he worked for. Flipchip told him and the guy asked, “Are you Flipchip?” Apparently, he’s been reading Tao of Poker and been checking out Lasvegasvegas’ 2005 WSOP photo gallery. Flipchip is officially a local celebrity!!

Posted by Dr. Pauly at 5:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s back to the Bellagio for Day 2 of the Bellagio Challenge Cup which was held in the remodeled poker room. Exactly 97 players bought in for $10K. The first place cash prize of $364,200 and a seat in the WPT Championships at the Bellagio were both at stake. Players started with $20K in chips on Monday and only 41 players returned to action on Tuesday. Sam Grizzle ended Day 1 as the chip leader with over $123K. For the Bellagio Challenge Cup, only the nine final table players are paid prize money.

I was disappointed to discover that early on before we arrived, there were several notable bust outs including T.J. Cloutier, Tim Phan, Bob Stupak, Jean Gaspard, Carl “2005 WSOP Main Event Bubble Boy” Ygborn, Allen Cunningham, Erik Seidel, Mike Wattel and Hasan Habbib.

Once action was down to 18 players and the final two tables, Quinn Do emerged as the chipleader. Scott Fischman, David Chui, and David Pham were all eliminated when action got down to two tables. Flipchip got in trouble for taking photos. He thought he was given clearance but a suit decided otherwise. I was cleared to cover the event for print media. However, I was not too happy with the way a veteran tournament photographer of Flipchip’s stature was treated. Hopefully he’ll be able to clear up this injustice and he’ll back to snap a winner’s photo on Wednesday.

I hung out on the rail near the Sports Book and focused my attention on “Table 1” because it featured a slew of bracelet winners including Cyndy Violette, Quinn Do, David Chui, and David “The Dragon” Pham. The always entertaining Sam Grizzle, who has no bracelets but made several WSOP final tables, was also at that solid table along with Mimi Tran.

Cyndy Violette bubbled out in 10th place after she was knocked out by Scotty Nguyen. She was short stacked and moved all in with A6s. Scotty Nguyen called with A-K and flopped a King. Scotty felt bad and he ran over to give her a big hug. Cyndy won nothing for 10th place and she left the table with extreme grace and flashed a warm smile. On the inside she must have been upset, but you would never know from her body language. There were no cameras there filming her every move, so she wasn’t faking it. After witnessing that moment and her excellent play during this year’s WSOP, Cyndy’s stock rose even more in my book. She’s a classy player.

The final table will resume at Noon on Wednesday. Quinn Do is the chipleader. Here are seating assignments with chip counts:

Seat 1: Fuat Can $47,900
Seat 2: Tobey Maguire $68,500
Seat 3: Jeff Shulman $190,300
Seat 4: Quinn Do $494,000
Seat 5: Scotty Nguyen $377,000
Seat 6: Annon Filippi $362,100
Seat 7: Chad Layne $40,800
Seat 8: Sam Grizzle $214,200
Seat 9: Mimi Tran $146,900

Some Bellagio poker room side notes:

I chatted with Ron Rose. He had some heart problems and that prevented him from playing in the WSOP. He joked that his health issues turned him into a cash game player because he’s not well enough to play lengthy tournaments. Good to see him at the tables again.

There was a Carmel Petresco sighting and it looked like she had just been shopping.

I chatted with Minh Ly in the Sports Book while I kept my eye on the Yankees score. He was upset with Mike Matusow. “He’s not a gentleman,” he repeated several times during our conversation. Supposedly, Matusow was talking tons of smack with Minh during the Main Event. On Monday night, Matusow arrived at the Bellagio to cash his $1M WSOP check. Minh was playing $4K/$8K at the time. Matusow wouldn’t stop talking and said he’d play Minh for a $1 million heads-up freeze out. Minh took him up on his offer and left to secure the money. When Minh came back 20 minutes later with a sufficient bankroll, Matusow bailed on him. “He’s afraid to play me,” Minh added. Mike Matusow is good, but Minh Ly would out play him for sure. Minh plays in the “big game” with Doyle and Chip Reese. He’s one of the last guys I’d want to play heads up, especially for $1M.

I played a cash game with tourists while covering the tournament. The $2/5 NL game was full, so I was seated right away at a $4/8 Limit table. Inside of an hour, I was up 32 big bets after my K-K and A-A held up. I only played a few hands after that and cashed out quickly. It was back to covering the final ten players.

I found everyone’s favorite Bellagio dealer Linda and she gave me a big hug. She told me she had to deal “the big game” which was located in Bobby’s Room. Off to the side of the poker room is a glass room for Bobby Baldwin and his friends. At first, I only saw Sammy Farha playing Gus Hansen heads up. Gus was scruffy and looked like he hadn’t showered or changed his clothes in days. The always dapper Sammy Farha had his trademark unlit cigarette hanging off of his bottom lip. Later on all the big boys showed up including Minh Ly, Chau Giang, Phil Ivey, and Bobby Baldwin. Linda told me they were playing $4K/$8K mixed games and she dealt Pot Limit Omaha with a $150K max bet per player. Anyone want to bankroll me in that game?

Posted by Dr. Pauly at 3:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)