07 17th, 2010
Joseph Cheong was born in Seoul, South Korea, hails from La Mirada, CA, and graduated from UC-San Diego last year with a degree in psychology. This is only his second time playing in the Main Event.
“It really hasn’t hit me yet,” Cheong said of being on the doorstep of the November Nine with 25 million chips and a life changing payday on the way. “Other than the cameras, this is the same as the tournaments I’ve been playing in everyday.”
Cheong’s bid is even more unlikely given his forgettable leading up to this point. The young pro said he cashed twice in approximately 20 events and came into the Main Event down overall.
“This is definitely a little redemption; it’s making up for the whole summer,” Cheong told PokerListings.
Now Cheong has more than 11% of the chips in play and just has to proceed with caution to secure his spot at the final table and a million-dollar-plus payout.
“There are lots of really good players left - mostly to the left of me - so I’ll probably take it a bit slower out there,” Cheong said of his strategy.
Still, Cheong doesn’t feel as though he’s secured any victories just yet. “Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t be surprised if I busted,” he said with a grin before retaking his seat at the feature table.
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07 17th, 2010
In 2003, a little-known Tennessee accountant with a crafty last name – – took down the () Main Event, igniting the modern poker boom. In 2010, Brentwood, Tennessee’s Matthew Bucaric is looking to recreate history. Bucaric made waves on Day 7 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, sending Gary Dishongh out the door in 63rd place with pocket aces against pocket kings.
It’s the dream scenario that every poker player hopes for, to have an opponent move all-in and then wake up with pocket rockets. In fact, Bucaric added insult to injury by spiking an ace on the river and taking down the hand with a set. The mass influx of chips moved him up to seven million in chips after he had entered Day 7 of the Main Event with just under four million. It was the rush of a lifetime at exactly the right time.
Bucaric is a business major at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, located about three hours due east of Brentwood on Interstate 40. This isn’t his first rodeo in the Main Event, either, as Bucaric finished 607th in the 2008 installment of poker’s most prestigious tournament and earned $21,000. Prior to that cash, his lone WSOP in the money finish was in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event in 2008 for $3,300.
When 78 players were left standing entering Day 7 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, Bucaric was one of just two from Tennessee. The other was Christopher Bolt, who qualified for the $10,000 buy-in tournament through . Bucaric’s Day 7 seat draw, which saw the field slashed to 27 players, included Adam “Roothlus” Levy and Peter Jetten.
Bucaric was born in Chicago and, leading up to the 2010 WSOP Main Event, his total earnings in World Series tournaments approached $25,000.
Image courtesy WSOP.com
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07 16th, 2010
Long Beach, New York’s Bryn Kenney, who goes by the moniker “BrynKenney” on , is one of the final 78 players in the 2010 () Main Event. He turned in an impressive WSOP performance prior to his run in the Main Event, bubbling the final table of the inaugural $25,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event for $141,000. Kenney ultimately took eighth in that tournament, which saw online poker pro Dan “djk123” Kelly capture the bracelet and become a sponsored pro of .
Kenney has made a living out of dominating Six-Handed events at the WSOP. In 2009, he finished eighth in a $1,500 buy-in version for $42,000. One year prior, Kenney took 35th for $16,000 in a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed tournament. Online, he bested the field of the PokerStars $200 rebuy in July 2007 for $52,000.
In January 2010 at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas, Kenney was involved in an altercation with online poker pro Jeff “ActionJeff” Garza. In a $5,000 preliminary event, Garza allegedly spat on Kenney, according to a lively thread that surfaced on the popular online poker forum PocketFives.com.
Garza later clarified what happened in a post on PocketFives.com: “I gave him a [expletive] you and he smirks at me. I walked up to him and said something along the lines of ‘Don’t look at me you thieving piece of [expletive]’ and nudge him with my shoulder. At this point, security gets called.” Garza revealed that the incident was provoked by multi-accounting online.
At the same PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Kenney took 54th in the Main Event and cashed for $45,000. Three years prior, he landed in 31st in the ’s () North American Poker Championship at the Fallsview Casino for $37,000.
Kenney was sixth in chips after Day 5 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event and 19th after Day 4. On Day 7 with 78 players remaining, he took to the felts at Table 374 alongside fellow online poker gurus Jerry “sandler1860” Payne, qualifier Christopher Bolt, and Josh “brikdog24” Brikis. He sat in 20th place at 3.83 million.
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07 16th, 2010
In one of the most impressive feats we’ve seen from a poker player in recent years, Matt “mcmatto” Affleck scored big in back-to-back runs in the () Main Event. In 2009, Affleck (no relation to actor Ben Affleck) went busto on Day 6 of the Main Event and cashed in 80th place for $69,000. In 2010, he came back strong once again, entering Day 7 of the $10,000 buy-in tournament with the 14th largest stack at 5.32 million.
Affleck, who plays under the persona “mcmatto” on the virtual felts of Poker and , hails from Mill Creek, Washington and could be found atop the chip counts throughout much of the 2010 WSOP Main Event. While his success in the live arena is somewhat limited to the Main Event in Las Vegas, he’s been a force to be reckoned with online.
His signature score is a chop in a $3,150 No Limit Hold’em Two-Day tournament during the 2009 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) for a colossal $470,000, one of the largest paydays ever given out in the virtual space. The final table of the high-stakes SCOOP event also featured ’s Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark, Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong, and North American Poker Tour Venetian Main Event runner-up Sam Stein. Affleck is a proven force on the most challenging live and online stages.
Affleck also owns a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) jersey, which came in February 2010 and was good for $80,000 after a heads-up chop. Other scores include a win in the $150 rebuy for $64,000 and a victory in the PokerStars Sunday Second Chance for $46,000.
Affleck is one of eight Americans in the top 15 in chips entering Day 7 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event. In a thread on PocketFives.com detailing the biggest suckouts that players have recorded, Affleck noted that a hand from his SCOOP run took the cake: “Check jammed KQo on JT8ss board on final table bubble of Scoop 3k last year. He had K9s and K hi held for me.”
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07 16th, 2010
One of the final 78 players in the 2010 () Main Event, William Thorson was one of two Swedes remaining when Day 7 began on Friday, July 16th (Niklas Toorell is the other). Thorson has dominated the -sponsored European Poker Tour (EPT), turning in a third place in the 2006 Irish Masters in Dublin for over $230,000.
2010 isn’t Thorson’s first deep run in the WSOP Main Event. In 2006, which went down as the largest Main Event in history, Thorson took 13th place and banked nearly $1 million; earned 12 times that amount for winning the tournament. In 2007, he used a small portion of his newfound earnings to enter a $5,000 Limit Hold’em event at the WSOP, where he cashed for $136,000.
In 2008, Thorson was up to his winning ways once again on the live poker circuit. In the Bahamas at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, he finished ninth in the EPT Main Event and collected $120,000. Three months later across “The Pond,” Thorson grabbed sixth in EPT San Remo and boosted his already lucrative bankroll by $222,000.
In the 2009 EPT Dortmund stop, Thorson made the final table of the Main Event and finished seventh. That cash was good for $147,000 in the tournament that saw become just the second woman ever to win an EPT feature tournament. In Monte Carlo to conclude the same season of the EPT, Thorson finished sixth in the High-Roller Championship for $130,000.
He won the Main Event of the PokerStars Baltic Festival in Tallinn, Estonia for $98,000, his last major tournament score leading up to the 2010 WSOP Main Event. He holds the fifth largest stack entering Day 7 at 6.53 million and is one of five non-Americans in the top eight in chips.
When he’s not tearing up the poker felts, Thorson can be found riding and training horses. He’s a member of Team PokerStars Pro.
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Five days ago, Vanessa Selbst was introduced as the newest member of Team along with former pro . The introduction took place at the Real World Suite at the Palms in Las Vegas, just across the street from the Rio, the site of the 2010 (). After Day 2B of the Main Event, Selbst sits in eighth on the leaderboard with a stack of 265,000, trailing chip leader David Assouline’s mountain of 387,800.
Selbst took down the PokerStars North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun Main Event and told the assembled crowd at the Palms that she had partly come out of retirement from poker. However, in order to solidify her Main Event run, she’ll have to navigate through a gauntlet of talent when the combined Day 3 field takes to the felt on Monday. Among those left in the hunt for the nearly $9 million top prize is , an original November Niner, who doubled up late in the day on Saturday with queens against A-K.
One of the final eliminations of Day 2B went to Tommy Vedes, who called all-in with Q-3 of spades on a flop of A-5-4 with two spades. Matt Reed showed A-Q for top pair and no spade came on the turn or river. Vedes took down the ’s Festa al Lago last year for $1.2 million. He owns over $550,000 in career WSOP earnings.
On a flop of 8-4-6, Tom Schneider pushed all-in with pocket sevens, but received a call from a player with a wired pair of aces, which held for the win. We won’t be hearing any cries of “Stack ‘em, stack ‘em, to the top” this year from the two-time bracelet winner’s wife, but Schneider finished the 2010 WSOP with four in the money finishes.
Three players who have made deep runs in the Main Event in previous years found the exit late in the day on Saturday. Jeff Shulman, who finished fifth in last year’s cycle for $1.9 million, and , who took third in 2004 for $2.5 million, were both ousted from the Main Event yesterday. Joining them was original November Niner , who bowed out in back-to-back hands after running a straight into a flush on his second-to-last pot.
One of our favorite moments of Day 2B involved . The pro announced via Twitter, “I’m shoving this hand no matter what, wish me luck.” True to his word, Cantu moved all-in and detailed what happened next on the popular social networking site: “Went raise 3000 call 3000 I get jt shove fold fold 31k.” Cantu, a dual WSOP bracelet winner, ended the day with a stack of 40,000.
Also bumped on Day 2B were Brunson 10 member Dan “djk123” Kelly, David “” Baker, , and pro , who made the final table of this event last year. Ivey was eliminated in especially gut-wrenching fashion, as he ran pocket queens into pocket kings. Ivey hit a queen on the turn to surge into the lead, but Yuji Masaki re-sucked on the river when a king hit. Ivey’s stack took a beating as a result and he was eliminated shortly thereafter.
Here are the top 10 chip stacks after Day 2B according to figures found on WSOP.com:
1. David Assouline – 387,800
2. Ricardo Fasanaro – 380,000
3. Matt Reed – 337,800
4. Jim “Mr_BigQueso” Collopy – 305,100
5. Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet – 295,600
6. Charles Sylvestre – 292,300
7. Sasha Rosewood – 279,500
8. Vanessa Selbst – 265,000
9. Marc Sander – 265,000
10. Gabriel Walls – 241,000
Other players remaining after Day 2B include legendary gambler Archie Karas, Victory Poker pro Dan Bilzerian, , UFC announcer Bruce Buffer, , , “The Simpsons” voice Hank Azaria, and Lock Poker pro Matt “All In At 420” Stout.
Sunday is an off day for the 2010 WSOP Main Event. On Monday, the survivors from both Day 2s will reconvene at the Rio for a combined Day 3. The tournament’s field will be whittled down to the final nine next Saturday, July 17th.
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Following the () press conference on Saturday, two of poker’s biggest names will take part in a World Cup prop bet that will end with the loser hanging his head in shame for a day.
Spain’s will play a heads-up match against of the Netherlands in the Bellagio’s Monet Ballroom one day before the World Cup final game between each player’s home country. The loser will wear the jersey of the winning player’s country as they watch the World Cup final together on Sunday morning prior to the start of Bellagio Cup VI. Then, they’ll keep the winner’s jersey on throughout Day 1 of the tournament. Sunday’s World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain kicks off at 2:30pm ET, with the Bellagio Cup starting later in the day.
The heads-up event is open to the public and can be seen live via Ustream through a dedicated link that will be posted on WorldPokerTour.com. Updates will be on Twitter throughout the contest and video highlights will be available on YouTube.com and on WPT’s website at the conclusion of the match.
Mortensen and Luske were both eliminated from the Main Event and will shift their focus fully toward the Bellagio Cup following Sunday’s game. Mortensen had three cashes at the this year, including a sixth place finish in the $10,000 HORSE Championship for $102,237. Luske, meanwhile, played only a handful of events at the Rio and had one cash, a 22nd place finish in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout.
Luske, who updates his Twitter account frequently, expressed his disappointment following his elimination from the Main Event: “there is always a reason 4things, busted from the main, back in the bellagio, like being home earlier than expected… lol gl 2 the survivors.”
The Bellagio Cup is the fourth stop on Season 9 of the WPT and will run from July 11th to the 15th. The final table will take place Thursday, July 15th, one day earlier than the initially scheduled, inside the Bellagio Fontana Lounge beginning at 4:00pm PT. Last year, Brazil’s Alex Gomes bested a field of 268 players to collect $1.1 million. The final table was one of the best the WPT has ever seen, consisting of pros , Justin “Boosted J” Smith, Alec Torelli, , and Christopher Sonessen. The other two winners of the Bellagio Cup were Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul (2008) and Mike “SirWatts” Watson (2009).
Among the topics discussed at Saturday’s WPT press conference will be the addition of a new female on-air talent, added tour attractions, and new additions to the television production.
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07 10th, 2010
2,412 players returned for Day 2A of the Main Event yesterday and after eight levels of action around half of them hit the rail.
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07 9th, 2010
Winning the WSOP Main Event wouldn’t be a bad option.
After getting shut out of the Main Event last year on Day 1d, Yevgeniy Timoshenko is playing in poker’s big dance for the first time this year.
The 22-year-old has done well, building a huge stack on Day 2a, despite sitting at a table that includes Full Tilt Poker Pro Matt Hawrilenko
“Today has been great,” he said on the dinner break. “I built 48k up to 225k so I’m doing really well.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Timoshenko closely over the last few years.
The Seattle, Washington, poker pro has amassed over $5 million in less than three years of playing poker and is considered by his peers to be in the upper echelon of tournament players.
“In my opinion, this kid has to be considered one of the best No-Limit Hold’em tournament players in the world,” said Jason Mercier earlier this year.
“His results speak for themselves, he is insanely tough to play against and I know I wouldn’t want him at my table.”
Timoshenko seems to be adapting to the Main Event well, confusing his opponents more and more with every play he makes.
“I think the Main Event is a lot more like a Sunday Million than a WPT Championship or a WCOOP Main Event,” he said. “The field is much larger and there are many more inexperienced players.”
Timoshenko conceded that he hasn’t had the greatest WSOP with only two small cashes in the preliminary events but after two days of the Main Event he’s already decided it’s his favorite tournament of the year.
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“I’m glad I’m not playing today so I won’t see Hellmuth make a fool out of himself with his entrance. I can’t help thinking it’s terrible.” That was the Tweet of 10-time () bracelet winner shortly before pro made his grand entrance to the Main Event on Wednesday. This year, Hellmuth dressed as an MMA fighter.
Hellmuth’s entrance was scheduled for around 1:15pm PT in front of the doors to the Rio Pavilion, site of the 2010 WSOP. A media representative told the assembled crowd to “watch for the stage” and, to our amazement, one rolled in being towed by a black pickup truck from the valet area. A group of male and female dancers put on a rather elongated show before Hellmuth finally turned out dressed in a black and yellow UB.com hooded robe.
Brunson in part recanted his controversial Tweet, saying, “I got scolded by PH for my last Tweet. Sorry Phil, but I got 103 responses. 99 agreed with me, 4 didn’t. I love you anyway, gl in the WSOP.” Brunson played in the WSOP Main Event on Thursday for Day 1D, ending the session with 62,000, or twice the starting stack. On July 3rd, “Texas Dolly” was spotted railing Dan “djk123” Kelly in the $25,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Max final table; Kelly ultimately took down the bracelet and became the newest Brunson 10 member.
Watching the Hellmuthian-sized entrance on Wednesday were a variety of pros including , Sam Chauhan, , and , the latter of whom jokingly told the crowd that he had been paid $50,000 to show up. Smith and Sebok, meanwhile, contemplated what the reaction would be if they showed up to a major tournament like the Main Event in the same fashion as Hellmuth.
On his way up to the Pavilion doors, Hellmuth picked up two escorts, his mom and his dad, who watched their son start his Main Event run. UFC’s Bruce Buffer, donning logos, introduced Hellmuth to the crowd before his microphone stopped working. Then, girls holding up cardboard cutouts of WSOP bracelets trailed Hellmuth down the hallway to the Amazon Room as a mass crowd pursued.
Despite his titanic-sized introduction, Hellmuth was sent packing from the Main Event on Day 1C. Bluff Magazine painted the picture of the scene on Twitter inside the Rio when the 11-time bracelet winner’s run ended: “Phil Hellmuth has been eliminated from Day 1C of the Main Event. Entire Pavilion room applauded as it was announced over the PA.”
For his part, Hellmuth seemed rather calm about being ousted from the $10,000 buy-in tournament, Tweeting, “Out! Still feel calm (not freaking out); did autographs + pics 4 45 mins str8 after busting. 2010 WSOP: played great, cards were not great.” Hellmuth finished the 2010 WSOP with four cashes and one final table for a total haul of $110,000.
While Sebok snapped Twitpic after Twitpic of the sea of poker media and fans enduring 110-degree heat to watch Hellmuth enter, tournament reporter B.J. Nemeth objectively guessed, “I’d bet that >50% of the media reports on Hellmuth’s entrance are negative or mocking in tone. What more needs to be said?” Meanwhile, , who also began her Main Event journey on Day 1C, noted, “Damn. I think I am in the wrong room for Phil Hellmuth’s entrance. Bad beat.”
Perhaps the best summary of the scene, appropriately, went to the always insightful Sebok, who succinctly Twittered: “Holy effing eff. Phil Hellmuth entrance. Wow. Just wow.” With reigning WSOP Main Event champ seated at the feature table, Hellmuth took his spot at Table 2, facing the room that his legacy has, in part, helped to fill. Hellmuth ate sushi with his parents on the dinner break, when his stack had dwindled to around 12,000, and he exited shortly thereafter.
Around 2:30pm PT on Wednesday, Poker News Daily caught up to Hellmuth inside the UB.com suite at the Rio to discuss his entrance. .
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