World Series of Poker Euro Update: Day 44Ups, Downs, Ins, And Outs For Europeans On Day 5 Of The Main Eventby Rebecca McAdam | Published: Jul 12, 2008 | |
 
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75 players were left out of an initial 6,844 after day 5 of the main event. Irishman James McManus started the day as chip leader but Romanian Cristian Dragomir fought him successfully for the top spot after taking down a large pot with quad fours. Russia’s Ivan Demidov also made his way on to the leader board early session. However, all was not sunshine and lollypops for Europeans on the day. The sob stories start with the eliminations of Dane Gus Hansen and one-time Card Player employee Keith Hawkins of England, and move on to Russian Alexander Kostritsyn’s heart-breaking run of bad luck.
Reagan Silber raised to 50,000 from the cutoff and was called by young Kostritsyn in
the small blind. Kostritsyn checked the Q
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flop and Silber led out for 75,000. Quickly, Kostritsyn slid in a large column of orange chips, making it 125,000 to go. The raise was quickly called by Silber. The turn was the A and Kostritsyn fired a bet of 200,000 which was again quickly called. The river was the J and Kostritsyn slid in a stack of chips in no distinguishable order. When asked how much, the dealer counted down the stack: 320,000. Silber considered his decision for a minute as the wall of reporters around the table grew deeper. Silber made the call and Kostritsyn showed K8 for the flush. Silber flashed Q-10 and unhappily mucked his hand. The hand brought Kostritsyn up to about 1.8 million, but his luck was about to go from bad to worse.
On a flop of A
93, he faced a bet of 150,000 from an opponent into an already large pot. Kostritsyn raised to a total of 350,000, and the remaining player folded his hand. The initial bettor went into the tank momentarily before electing to call the bet. The turn brought the J
, and the player checked. Kostritsyn quickly checked behind, and the river came 6. Again both players checked, and Kostritsyn mucked when his opponent turned over AQ for top pair.
Kostritsyn was having a tough level to say the least. The most expensive hit to his stack came with a board of AJ107, when his opponent, Reagan Silber saw his chance for revenge and went all in. Kostritsyn had Silber’s 616,000 in chips covered, but his AA was no good against Silber’s KQ. The loss left Kostritsyn with approximately 1.5 million in chips.
It looked like his luck was set to return when he was all-in with trip deuces later on, but Cristian Dragomir hit his flush on the river and took down the pot. Kostritsyn dropped to 820,000 after the hand, while Dragomir doubled to nearly 3,000,000.
Eventually, Kostritsyn’s time was up. His AK did not hold up against Garrett Beckman’s pocket sevens and he went out late in the day in 84th place with $64,333.
The day was not a walk in the park for Dutch player Yde van Deutekon either. Deutekon became an Internet sensation earlier this year when he created a website designed around the premise that people would pay to watch him spend entire days in bed. Sleepingrich.com earned him $19,000 before he travelled to Las Vegas for the WSOP.
One from the cut-off, he raised to 65,000 preflop. Joe Bishop was in the cut-off and made the call, as did Albert Kim from the button. Both blinds folded. The flop came JJ5, and all three players checked. The 6 came on the turn and Van Deutekon stabbed at the pot with a 90,000 bet. Bishop folded, but Kim made the call. The 7 fell on the river and again Deutekon checked. Kim announced a bet of 250,000 and Deutekon snap-called, announcing he had the nut flush. But lo and behold, he had misread his hand. He actually held AK and had been fortunate to not raise all-in as Kim had him substantially covered. Kim won the pot with J10, and Van Deutekon was left with just under 400,000 in chips.
Full credit to him though as he took it all in his stride, and was able to laugh about his misread with the rest of the table.
Russian Nikolay Losev was among chip leaders at the end of the day, but anything can change with so much left to fight for. The final 79 players are set to return for day 6 at 8pm this evening. Check back at CardPlayer.com for all your updates and news from the 2008 World Series.