A Railbird's Dream
Jun 05, '07
As the field started to narrow and tables started to break, Phil Ivey among others, found himself sitting along the rail at quite possibly one of the toughest tables remaining. Ivey’s new table draw puts him right alongside of Young Pham, Eric Froehlich and Arnold Spee. At table 59, the very next table over, sits William Chen, Dewey Tomko and J.J. Liu, followed by J.C.Tran, Danny Wong and David Levi at table 57.
J.C. Tran didn’t last too long though, when he bets $550 before the flop and the player to his left makes the call. Both players check to a flop of Q-Q-rag, and J.C. moves all-in on the turn when he pairs his 10. His opponent calls and flips over A-J while Tran shows A-10 for the lead. A king comes on the river giving his opponent Broadway and eliminating J.C. from the tournament.
As Shane Schleger’s table broke, he too found himself at a terrible disadvantage by drawing a seat right between Phil Hellmuth and Billy Baxter, and directly across from Dan Alspach, and Dutch Boyd.
Dutch Boyd was the next one to go when Phil Hellmuth set a trap for him by limping in the pot with queens from under the gun. Phil Hellmuth, Shane Schleger and Billy Baxter all limp into the pot from an early position. Dutch Boyd moves all-in from the button for $3,650 and Hellmuth quickly calls. Schleger and Baxter both fold and just as soon as Hellmuth can get his chips into the pot he flops over Q
Q
. Boyd shows the bluff with K5
as the board comes J4
9910. Boyd says to Hellmuth, “Nice trap.”, as he gets out of his seat to leave. Then he turns to the media and jokingly asks us to write that he had A-K rather than K-5. Dan Alspach looks at Phil and says, “I tried to warn him, I said Holy-Moly when you limped in from under the gun.”
The re-buy portion of this event is now over and the numbers should prove to be staggering…once they are officially released. In an unlikely turn of events, Daniel Negreanu said that he only had one re-buy today with an add-on right before the end of Level 2, shocking considering that two years ago Daniel had gone into his pocket 25 times. J.J. Liu on the other hand said that she had 15 re-buys, and she still has barely any chips in front of her.
Player Tags: J.C. Tran, Dan Alspach, David Levi, Arnold Spee, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Joanne Liu, Shane Schleger, Eric Froehlich, Dutch Boyd, Danny Wong, Young Pham
Lots of Action
Jun 05, '07
Level 2 proved to fare some decent action, and while many players were eliminated, some were just showing up. Phil Hellmuth made his grand entrance at the end of the first level only to take his seat at what would now be one of the toughest tables in the entire tournament. With Dan Alspach to his left and Dutch Boyd to his left, Hellmuth found himself occupying a vacant seat right next to Billy Baxter. Everyone gets a good laugh when Phil hands his tournament receipt to the dealer and there are all sorts of names and numbers on it. A confused dealer asks Hellmuth, “Just one?” Hellmuth explains to the table that, “I lost $12,000 betting during the break yesterday, and I have to remember who it’s to.” The dealer laughs as another player at the table explains that all of the writing on the receipt is a list of his debts for the day.
Shortly after his arrival, Phil Hellmuth gets involved in a big pot with Dan Alspach. Hellmuth makes a big bet on the river, tells Alspach he has three 3’s, and Alspach makes the call. Hellmuth flips over Q3 reviling a set on the board and Alspach mucks his hand. Hellmuth says, “I told you I had three 3’s, why did you call?” Alspach says, Eh, I wanted to see it.” Alspach may have wanted to see the bad beat, but Dutch Boyd did not want to see the queen in the window when he was all-in against Hellmuth a few hands later. Boyd gets all of his money in the pot before the flop and Hellmuth has him covered. Dutch shows A-K while Hellmuth flips over A-Q, and the board comes Q-10-5-5-J.
Raymond Davis was eliminated from the tournament at the very beginning of Level 2 when he calls all-in on a flop of K98. There is side pot action as two other players remain in the hand, and after the turn and river bring the 4 and the 7, the small blind shows Q3cfor the flush and Davis throws his hand into the muck. Instead of digging into his pocket to re-buy, Davis gets up out of his seat and hits the rail.
The re-buy portion of this event is now over, and players are reduced to the number of chips that they have in front of them. Total number of entrants and prize pool numbers should be released sometime during the next level.
Player Tags: Dan Alspach, Raymond Davis, Phil Hellmuth, Dutch Boyd
