The PPP Vegas team have been tripping up over famous people all over the Rio. But they are not the only ones bumping into the worlds elite Get a load of this little conicidence!
WOW IT’S THAT FAMOUS GUY…. FROM THE CD!!
The half centuries:
Day 2A concluded last night in Vegas Jon Moonves in pole postion with 570K in chips. Jeff “The Rain” Banghart on 551K and Tuan Lam on 515,000.
Gone gone gone!
Down and out notables are Hoyt Corkins, William Chen, 2005 main event champ, Joe Hachem, Orla’s conquest Patrik Antonius, motor-mouth Tony G and the very amicable and charitable, Barry Greenstein.
Two of the top ladies also hit the rails neither Evelyn Ng or Victoria Coren will cash this year.
Unfortunately Irishman Alan Smurfit ran his pocket sevens into poacket aces and busted out of the main event 
there goes his hopes of a second wsop 2007 bracelet.
The contenders:
Pro players Scotty Nguyen and Julian Gardner are fairing well with 74k and 130K respectively. Spiderman (Toby Maguire) is clinging to very reasonable 150K. WSOP 2007 Pot limit Omaha champ Robert Mizrachi is well on his way to bracelet number two with 159K. This would be one hell of a year for him if he could pull it off!
Pro’s to watch!
Adopted Irish player Willie Tann is on 282K and founder of the venerable EPT Mr John Duthie is on 381,500.
In the green corner:
Donnacha O’Dea keeps the hopes alive for the Irish having finished up Day 2A with 40K.
Our Vegas PPP’s may be packing up their sequined cowboy hats and sparklers but Mr Karl H is still in town and we will continue to bring you updates from the biggest game in town.
So who’s hot and who’s not?
Last years controversial champion Jamie Gold bit the dust early along with Moe Szyslak AKA Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, AKA Hank Azaria!
On the rails so far are such notable sharks as Phil “I’m the best poker player in the world, if luck wasn’t involved I would win every game” Hellmuth (bad luck Phil), Martin de Knijff, Cyndy Violette, Erick Lindgren, Freddy Deeb and Surinder Sunar.
Peter Costa and David Plastik are also still in the running while Thor Hansen and Layne Flack are motoring along with about 50K in chips each.
Totally worth a paragraph all of its own is Mr Padraig Parkinson! He is very much still in the game with 23K in chips. Go Padraig!
Sorel Mizzi is on quite a roll this year. 3rd in the Irish open and now he is sitting in Vegas atop a 65K stack! Mind you he almost eliminated himself earlier on when he picked up his jacket and said good luck to the table just as he rivered a flush!
Carlos Mortensens luck appears to be changing. Having been first out of the Irish Open 2007 when his pocket aces were cracked by pocket kings catching a flush on the river he has 85K in chips, go Carlos!
Three pro’s to watch Daniel Negreanu on 56k, Ted Forrest 115K and Chip Jett sitting pretty in 8th position with 140K.
The current chipleader is lesser known player Josh Evans with 240K, Mickey “Mouse” Mills is in second with 180K, Cindy Longoria third with 166K and John “Kunkuwap” Tabatabai in forth with 161,500.
mmmm chips!
Todd Bruson! With half an hour left to play on day 1, Todd Brunson limps in from the small blind. The Big Blind then makes it 4,000 to go. Brunson then re-raises to 25,000 and the big blind calls. Just before the flop cards are dealt the big blind player mistakes his 25,000 call for an allin and turns over his cards!!!! He is holding QQ.
The flop comes down Kclubs, 2clubs, 7spades
Brunson holds Aspades 2hearts.
His opponent is SHOWING QQ!
Despite this Brunson bets 5,800 (allin!) then flips over his As 2h showing the bottom pair bluff play. Just when you think it cannot get any more bizarre. The turn is the 6clubs and the RIVER….. is the 2diamonds.. giving Brunson trip two’s and a 65,000 pot.
Only at the WSOP eh?
But some are more lucky than others! Lucky lucky PPP Teamster Nic would like to remind Ross and Orla that they are not the ONLY luckboxes to be jollying away the week at a Poker event:
So they think this is fun?
Try this for size, here is our Nic in the golden, sun-soaked paradise of Brighton Sands:
Event 54 at the WSOP 2007 is the $5,000 buyin No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball w/Re-Buys (try saying that ten times whilst chewing a fruit pastille..)
This even is not for the feint hearted! Names like Chad Brown, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, Freddy Deeb, Chip Reese, Gus Hansen, Howard Lederer, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Scotty Nguyen, Johnny Chan, Men Nguyen and Doyle Brunson adorn the tournament list for this tournament and just one of them is enough to make a grown man cry!
One man who is unphased by the big names is big name himself, Irishman Andy Black! He currently sits in 10th place in this tournament with 130K in chips.
Apparently two and a half hours late into the tournament Phil Hellmuth swanned in only to discover he was nearly down to the felt after being blinded off for the duration of his absence. Of course he was livid and let everyone in the vicinity know about it but he calmed down ten minutes later when he doubled up through Don Zewin.
Players are currently on break but we shall keep you updated with Andy’s progress!
06th July: Our Andy bowed out in a respectable fifth place position. We will be watching the action in the main event from here on in.
The final hand in the $1,000 No Limit Rebuy event saw Theo Tran digging his own grave when he re-raised all in with a gutshot straight draw. Michael Graves called with an open ended straight draw and middle pair. Neither the turn nor the river helped either player, nonethesless Graves was victorious and took the first place title and $742,121 in prize money.
Theo Tran’s purse was none to anemic either with his second place prize of $387,193. Shawn Luman came in third and took $229,249.
We interrupt this broadcast of frivolous and trivial poker game play to bring you news of a far bigger, more prestigious event, happening currently in the pink capital of the United Kingdom…….
Hardened PPP criminal Nic is having a gay old time in Brighton at the paddypowerpoker.com Summer Breeze Poker festival. We asked Nic if he would like to go to Vegas instead and he replied, “oooh no, those flashy lights give me migraine and the air-conditioning gets inbetween me chaps!”
Erm nice one Nic, keep it up!
In an event that saw 2007 WSOP main event champion Joe Hachem bow out first shorly followed by the venerable “poker brat” Phil Hellmuth you could be forgiven for having every thought a rebuy tournament was tantamount to a crap-shoot.
Micheal Graves couldnt care less as the cards have clearly fallen in his favour and he sits in pole position at the final table of this $1,000 buyin event. A mere 100k in chips seperate him from his two closest contenders, Michael Graves in first with 1,233,000, Isaac Haxton 2nd with 1,226,000 and Theo Tran in third with 1,132,000 in chps.
Graves was at the lucky end of a coin flip earlier on when he called a pre-flop allin raise with AJ against his oppenents pocket tens. His opponent Shawn Hatten pushed him to elimination on the river where a jack washed up, doubling his stack and putting him right back in contention.
A few hands later Graves called another coterminous allin and pitted his pocket sevens against the A T overcards of Alex Bolotin. The board came low and Bolotin was sent to the rails while Graves promoted himself to pole position. Players are now on break and the action will resume at around 8pm this evening.
Event number 53 begun on the 3rd of July in the Rio Suites Las Vegas. 142 players started in the $1,000 buyin Limit Holde’m Shootout event, but only 46 remain. In 31st none other than our very own Alan Smurfit sitting right on top of Ram Vaswani in 32nd.
Play has now ended for the evening but we will keep you updated when play resumes. Do we really think Alan needs more money? Answers on a postcard to Smurfit paper mills…
