Day 1A
2009 PCA: Full-fat wrap
The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure might have outgrown its name these days. Really it’s more of an extravaganza than a plain old adventure: countless tournaments, thousands of players, millions of bucks.
We’re only just through the first of six days and we’ve already seen enough action to last right through 2009. We kicked off on Paradise Island with a photo-shoot for tomorrow’s World Cup of Poker, then 660 players filed into the room for day 1A of the $10,000 main event.
The Usual Suspects, Team PokerStars Pro style
Add to that a nine-handed battle for our friends from colder climes known as the Nordic PokerStars Expedition, and then there was Battle Boris, where all-comers took on the former tennis champion Boris Becker heads-up for a seat in the main event.
And even if we focus solely on that big dance, there’s probably not enough room in cyberspace to note all the subtle intricacies of a full day’s intriguing play. In its most basic form, here’s the story of day 1a: 660 started, 188 remain after eight 75-minute levels.
From Team PokerStars Pro, the following live to fight another day: Marcin Horecki, Barry Greenstein, Greg Raymer, Vicky Coren, Tom McEvoy, Lee Nelson, Vanessa Rousso. The happiest of all of them will be the Polish professional Horecki, who hit quad aces on the way from a short stack to more than 150,000. McEvoy has plenty and Greenstein has ground his way to a big stack.
Lee Nelson
Greg Raymer
On the flip-side, the party is sadly over for the following: Daniel Negreanu, Luca Pagano, Chad Brown, Steve Paul-Ambrose, Joe Hachem, Alex Kravchenko and Gavin Griffin. Each departed at various junctures of this characteristically unforgiving day of competition.
Joe Hachem
We were also joined in the Bahamas by a fine showing of the PokerStars Million Dollar Men, those World Series final table players who earned themselves a fortune in November. Although Dennis Phillips and Darus Suharto departed, Ylon Schwartz flew up the chip ladder early on and remained there until sundown and beyond.
Ylon Schwartz
Late on this evening, the room filled with Brazilians, which in the absence of a soccer game, a blazing sun or a bag of nuts could only mean one thing: one of their own was prospering around the tables.
Felipe Ramos
So it proved, with the PokerStars qualifier Felipe Ramos, previously known as the first Brazilian ever to cash on the EPT, racing into a late-day chip lead. Ramos stayed there until the players began bagging up chips this evening, and will spend a day on the sand tomorrow feeling very comfortable indeed.
The chip leading duo of Marcin Horecki and Felipe Ramos
Also among the leaders breathing down Ramos’s neck are David Baker, Jeff Madsen and Courtland Twyman, all from the United States. Then there’s the PokerStars ShootingStar George Danzer, from Germany, Ludovic Lacay, and Edward Sabat.
Edward Sabat
All of those will be coming back for day two on Wednesday, but not before we’ve gone through Tuesday, which will be a lot like today. Join us at 10am EST for the start of the World Cup, followed by day 1b of the main event.
And if you’re in the mood to stay up all night, then why not look back at all of today’s action with any of the following quick clicks.
Five years on Paradise Island
Party on
As big as it gets
Team PokerStars Pros
A peek at paradise
early musings
The online invasion
Honorary members of the team
A sample of the field
Fossilman on the up
A tale of two Gavins
Not the softest table
Of all the tables in the room, he sits down at mine
Some words with the Bear
The four corners
Fifteen minutes
D’Amato on the stump
PokerStars Columbus
A Polish drama
Post-dinner malaise
Raymer’s vow
The Tom McEvoy experiment
Greenstein rising
Vamos Ramos
The estimated chip counts for some notable players can be found on the chip count page. These will be magically replaced overnight by the full official counts, as and when they are made available from tournament officials.
There’s also all this in numerous indecipherable languages, which you might like to click through to, provided you understand it. In which case, there’s German, Swedish, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian and Polish. Fill your boots.
All of today’s photography comes from either Joe Giron/IMPD or Neil Stoddart - as it will do for the rest of the week. And there’s also plenty of moving pictures over at PokerStars.tv
Thanks for your attention and see you all tomorrow for more from Paradise.
2009 PCA: Vamos Ramos
The six seat had no part the hand, but he was shaking his head like everybody else in the room. “Would you deal him a cooler? Somebody needs to cool that guy off.”
The three seat–who had also not been in the hand– looked like he’d just escaped death. “That was a cooler,” he said.
And so it had been. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s much more to the story.
It all revolves around Brazilian Felipe “mojave14″ Ramos. Having turned pro a couple of years ago, he ascended through poker’s ranks so fast, it had his friends shaking their heads (a common theme around Ramos, it seems). Last year in San Remo, Ramos became the first Brazilian to ever cash in an EPT event.
Now, it’s easy to make a lot of a quick rise to the top. It happens on every Day 1. There has to be a chip leader, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise when somebody comes out of nowhere and suddenly has a ridiculously large stack. And yet, there was Ramos with a set of fours on a six-high board. He was up against somebody with way too many chips and A-6 in his hand.
So, Ramos’ 245,000 stack became the talk of the room. The crowds pushed in, the cameras flashed, and Ramos couldn’t stack his chips fast enough. Before the crowds thinned, he had another player all-in. Ramos was nearly certain to lose more than 1/6 of his stack. His queens looked absolutely dreadful against his opponent’s pocket aces.
But, really, you already know what happens right? Of course you do. That flop came out of the dealer’s hands like a Henny Youngman punchline. King? Yep. Another king? Right on. Oh and what’s that? Well, of course, it’s a queen. If the man with pocket aces had vomited all over the table, no one would’ve blamed him. If it hadn’t been so expected, I think several other people might have just cried there on the spot.
And so went Ramos back to stacking chips. That’s when his opponent’s started wishing cooler’s upon him. Really? To wish a cooler on somebody is the poker equivalent of wishing a social disease on your foe. It’s just bad karma.
Then again, when Ramos gets it on with the vamos, karma takes a backseat. Ramos is driving this bus and he’s doing it with the chip lead.
***
In other news, take a trip down the lazy river with Hevad Khan.
Watch PCA 09: Hevad’s lazy river on PokerStars.tv
2009 PCA: Greenstein Rising
I caught the action on the flop. The board read Kh-Ks-8s. A very nervous looking player in Seat 1 fired out 4,500. Barry Greenstein had around 25,000 or so stacked up in two columns. He reached down and grabbed a column with each hand and announced that he was all in.
His opponent tanked. After a couple of seconds of constant chip shuffling and staring at the board, the young player called. He tabled Js-Jc and was ahead of Greenstein’s As-4s, but desperately needed to fade the flush draw. The turn was a blank but the river was the Ad. Greenstein missed his flush draw but caught the proverbial Ace on the river to double up to a shade under 50,000.
A couple of hands later, Greenstein made mince meat out of another young player. This one was in Seat 10. He called Greenstein’s pre-flop raise. On a flop of 7d-6s-5c, Greenstein fired out 4,000 on the flop and the young player called.
The 10s fell on the turn and Greenstein bet 8,000. His opponent quickly called. The river was the Ac. Greenstein bet two 5,000 chips. The young kid tanked for several minutes and counted down his stack a couple of times before he folded his hand. Greenstein dragged the pot worth and picked up another 15,000 to push his stack over 60,000.
* * *
A couple of Atlantic City rounders, Matt Glantz and Raj Patel, have big stacks. Glantz, a mixed cash game guru, is seated at Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson’s table and he has close to 150,000. Across the room, another Borgata regular, Raj Patel, was looking good with a solid 100,000.
As I wandered by Arnaud Mattern’s table, I noticed that the Frenchman was getting a massage and scribbled that down in my notes. He saw that and said, “Heya Pauly, I have 53,000… if that’s what you were writing down.”
I told him that I wasn’t actually recording a chipcount and was more interested in his massage. Mattern was moved to a tough table that included Bill Edler and Jon Little.
2009 PCA: The Tom McEvoy post
Rummaging through the official World Series of Poker archive at the University of Nevada this summer, I found the original, official bracelet winner’s questionnaire handed to the 1983 Main Event champion.
That man was a then-unknown player relatively new to poker, who had won a bracelet in a $1,000 limit event and then booked his place to the big dance in a satellite tournament at Binion’s. When he went on to take down the most prestigious prize in the game, he entered the history books as the first satellite qualifier to go all the way to the winner’s enclosure.
The name proudly written at the top of this questionnaire was that of Tom McEvoy. In the “Hometown” section he had written Grand Rapids, MI., and in the section marked “What will you do with the money?” he had charmingly answered “I collect stamps and so I will probably buy some more of them.”
Tom McEvoy
These days, McEvoy’s stamp collection must be huge. He added another two bracelets to that pair won in 1983 and has career tournament earnings of more than $2m. Moreover he is the author of numerous poker books and strategy columns and he joined Team PokerStars Pro a few years back to bring a wealth of experience and some serious, durable talent to the toughest playing team in the game.
McEvoy’s latest achievement is a stack on day 1a of the 2009 PCA of close to 90,000. I saw two hands: one was a kings versus ace-king encounter in the second level; the second was K-10 versus pocket eights and a king on the flop.
McEvoy has today spent some time kitted out in a wrap-around visor preferred by a newer breed of player. But he has maintained, as ever, the impeccable table demeanour of the old school, who have seen all there is to see in the game.
Yesterday, McEvoy shared his wisdom on the subject of a single hand played by his Team PokerStars Pro colleague ElkY during last year’s PCA final table. It’s always worth listening to, like every word that comes out of McEvoy’s mouth.
Watch PCA 09: Hand analysis from 2008 Final Table on PokerStars.tv
2009 PCA: Raymer’s vow, and the Tommy Angelo experiment
“Someday I’m going to try the Tommy Angelo experiment.”
That’s Greg Raymer holding court in the two-seat. Though his face doesn’t give away what happened to his chip stack, it’s clear even at 12 feet that it must have had something to do with aces.
“What you do,” Raymer explains, “is you come in one day and open-fold aces. No action to you or anything. Just fold them.”
The table, as you might expect, sat incredulous.
Raymer continued, “Just to prove to yourself the world isn’t going to end.”
Though FossilMan may someday follow the master poker story-teller’s plan and open-fold aces, it won’t happen tonight.
See, Raymer wants 80,000 chips for Day 2. Right now he has 40,000. He had more, but two unfortunate hands set him back. The first happened when Evelyn Ng open-pushed for 7,000. Raymer called with pocket tens, sure no one would call behind him. Instead, a player Raymer describes as “the guy who plays too loose” called too. With more than 20,000 in the pot, the 8-7-4 flop looked divine. Raymer bet at it and loose-goosey folded. Irrelevant, really, as Ng had hit her miracle, flopping a set with pocket eights.
Not too much later, Raymer’s aces got cracked by AK on a K-6-6-K-x board. Raymer was able to get away from it without losing more than 16,000, but it was enough to set him on an curious path.
With two levels remaining in the night, Raymer has made a solemn vow. He will have at least 80,000 chips at night’s end or he will have zero. It’s as simple as that.
There is a method here you have to consider. This $10,000 event is going to have a first prize of more than $2 million, so anybody would want a shot at winning. Thing is, Wednesday (the official Day 2 of the main event) happens to coincide with the $25,000 High Roller event. Raymer, as you might expect, wants to play. If he’s playing Day 2 of the main event, he wants a stack to play for the final table. If not, he wants to be in on the big action. Simple. And so he has his plan…double up or get the hell out of here.
That means for the next two hours, you can expect to see a lot of what you see in the picture below: Raymer all-in with a devious smile on his face.
As if to prove he’s not mucking around, when Ng came in for a raise to 5,000, Raymer just looked at her and then pushed in all his chips. Ng folded and Raymer was 5,000 closer to his goal.
I suspect Raymer will eventually clue everyone in on his plan. After the Tommy Angelo talk, his opponents probably won’t believe him. Frankly, that will probably fit into Raymer’s scheme just fine.
***
In other news, the tournament has a new chip leader and his name is Marcin Horecki. The Polish PokerStars Pro just beat the wadding out of an opponent’s weak ace with pocket kings. Horecki now sits just short of 200,000.
Finally, here’s a bit with another Team PokerStars Pro, Alex Gomes, and his thoughts on the PCA.
Watch PCA 09: Alex Gomes at the PCA on PokerStars.tv
2009 PCA: Post-Dinner Malaise
There is an unexplained phenomenon in poker. For some odd reason there is an unusual number of bustouts in the level right after the dinner break. Perhaps players lose their focus over the lengthy break, or maybe they have a few cocktails at dinner and loosen up their game upon their return to the tables.Then again, with the blinds going up, shorter stacks know that it’s time to make a move if they want to accumulate enough chips to advance to Day 2.
- Shirley “Poker Babe” Rosario was one of the first of the post-dinner causalities. She was all in with pocket nines versus Big Slick. Her opponent flopped a King and turned another King. She could not improve her hand on the river and she headed to the rail. She mentioned that she was sticking around to play in the $2,000 NL side event later this week.
- One of the first big dogs is out. Howard Swains reported in a previous post that Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu busted out. As Negreanu left the Imperial Ballroom, a horde of his adoring fans also departed. The Negreanu-heads were out in full force as they hovered around his table. The floor staff acted more like crowd control experts as they continuously asked the Negreanu-heads to stop clogging the aisles.
- Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem was short stacked for most of the afternoon and early evening. The former world champion just bowed out and became yet another post-dinner casualty.
- PokerStars Shooting Star Jan Heitmann from Germany was moved to Ylon Schwartz’s table shortly before the players left for dinner. Heitmann’s stack is not too healthy compared to Schwartz’s 70,000.
- Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer continued the banter with his tablemates. “I never fold Kings,” he mentioned. “I actually only folded them once. It was during the (WSOP) Main Event. There was a fourth raise and I just had to lay them down. Of course, he had Aces.”
- Two young guns are approaching a potential showdown at Midnight. Ryan Young is still among the chipleaders (if he’s not the outright chipleader approaching 150,000). Sitting across from him is James “mig.com” Mackey. Both players won WSOP bracelets in 2007 and in another odd coincidence, both players have exactly $1.5 million in career earnings.
- With a few minutes to go in Level 6, there are approximately 333 players left on Day 1A. Almost half of today’s field has already been eliminated.
2009 PCA: A Polish drama
It’s a quiet moment on media row at the mid-point of level six. One PokerStars.com blogger is talking to the one and only PokerStars.pl (Poland) blogger about the tournament to date.
Dot.com: “I just heard that Marcin Horecki has close to 70,000.”
Dot.pl: “No, he’s got about 17,000. That’s all. But I’ll check.”
[PAUSE]
Dot.pl goes galloping across the tournament floor to catch up with the Team PokerStars Pro from Zakopane, Poland.
Dot.pl: “It’s true. He’s got 72,000. He had two big hands. Here.
Dot.pl hands scrap of paper to Dot.com.
Dot.com: I can’t read it. What does it say? You need to read it out so that it will fit into the contrived dramatic structure of the next post that I haven’t yet thought of, but will retrospectively demand.
Marcin Horecki
Dot.pl Sure. He had ace-king against queens just after the dinner break and that doubled him up to about 34,000. Then he got aces and flat called pre-flop when another player raised. The flop came A-3-2 and they both checked and then the turn was another ace, so he had quads already. The other player went all in, Horecki called and that’s how he got to 72,000.
Dot.com: Brilliant.
[PAUSE. SILENCE.]
The tournament continues.
2009 PCA: PokerStars Columbus
Last year the intrepid explorers hired by the European Poker Tour discovered a new part of their continent. It was here in the Bahamas, previously erroneously considered to be part of the Americas, but established now - and forever more - as a wonderful outcrop of Europe.
Making themselves at home this afternoon around the same table in the centre of the Imperial Ballroom are three stalwarts of the other wing of the EPT, the one that takes place in the land-mass more traditionally referred to as Europe.
They are Ludovic Lacay, from France, Juan Maceiras, the PokerStars sponsored player from Spain, and Sebastian Ruthenberg, the PokerStars ShootingStar from Germany. They each sat around a final table on the EPT in 2008: Lacay in Warsaw on season five, Maceiras in the same city in season four, and Ruthenberg in Barcelona, where he ended up with everyone else’s chips for his first EPT crown.
Juan Maceiras
Ruthenberg added that to a World Series bracelet won in Las Vegas last summer and Maceiras took down a weekly Bellagio $1,000 event in June, proving they can travel well.
Sebastian Ruthenberg
Ludovic Lacay
Here it’s Lacay making the most head-way, with about 114,000 going into the dinner break. Ruthenberg had been down to around 5,000 before he surged back to 25,000 and Maceiras tripled up with pocket fives, cracking queens and jacks in the same hand when he flopped a set.
It’s a table worth watching, whatever part of Europe, on whichever side of the Atlantic, you come from.
* * * * *
The Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu is out - choosing the wrong time to defend his small blind with a 5-7. It was folded round to the button, who made it 2,000 to go (blinds are 400-800 in level eight). Negreanu, sitting on only 7,000 or so, called from the small blind and the big blind came along for the ride. The flop came 4-5-9, two hearts, and Negreanu turned on the speech play. “What’s the best way to play this?” he asked out loud. “That hit me. Err, I’m all in.”
The big blind folded but the button, the original pre-flop raiser, called and showed pocket jacks that by the time the turn and river had come 9-J had become a full house. Negreanu had been hit by that flop, but his middle pair didn’t improve that much.
2009 PCA: D’Amato on the stump
There are many famous folks in the room tonight. Most are doing their battles on the Bahamian baize. One man, however, stands out for a fight going on 944 miles away in Washington D.C.
As you might already know, Former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato serves as the chairman of the Poker Players Alliance, a group formed to fight for laws protecting the rights of poker players.
D’Amato spoke to the assembled crowd earlier tonight and urged everyone to join in the fight for online poker.
If you would like to join the PPA, you can visit the Poker Players Alliance web site.
2009 PCA: The snack wrap
When we bloggers begin to finish up our work for the night, we put our biggest efforts into what we oh-so-creatively call The Wrap. Now, as we finish up the fifth level of the day and go to dinner, it’s time for a brief snack.
Here’s a quick breakdown of where things stand at the 90-minute dinner break. Of the 668 starters, somewhere around 440 remain. When dinner is finished, we’ll see three more levels before breaking for the evening. Below is a quick look at how the day got started.
Watch PCA 09: Day 1a Intro on PokerStars.tv
The apparent chip leader at the moment is Ryan Young. In just five levels of play, Young has managed to turn his 20,000 starting stack into 145,000. That’s good for the chip lead and likely a very relaxing post-dinner evening.
Ryan Young
Other big stacks at the break include Ludovic Lacay (114,000) Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer (76,000), Ylon Schwartz (70,000), and Jeff Madsen (75,000). Courtland Twyman likewise has rocketed his way up to 85,000 after coming out on the good end of a J-J vs. A-K vs. A-K battle.
Courtland Twyman
For a quick look at some selected dinner break chip counts, see the 2009 PCA Chip Counts page.
Not faring as well in the early going today have been a few members of Team PokerStars Pro. Early eliminations include Chad Brown, Gavin Griffin, and 2006 PCA champion Steve Paul-Ambrose. WSOP final table player and member of the PokerStars Six Dennis Phillips also hit the rail early and is already fooling around in the Sit & Go events on the other side of the room. Mike “Timex” McDonald and Terrence Chan will also be finding another way to spend the night. As reported by fellow blogger Paul McGuire:
I caught the hand in progress. The player from the button raised. Terrence Chan went all in from the small blind for his last 2,250. A player at the cutoff tanked for several minutes before he called. Chan was all in and had a chance to triple up. The flop was Qd-8s-2c. The player from the cutoff tossed out a blue 5,000 chip. The button player smirked and then folded. Chan tabled pocket Aces. His opponent flipped over pocket eights for a flopped a set. Before the dealer could deal the turn card, Chan stood up and grabbed his things. The turn was the Jh and the river was the 10d. Chan’s hand did not improve and he was eliminated.
While we hope you’ve been hanging on every post here, we’ll understand if you’re just tuning in for the evening. Here’s a quick look back at what we’ve reported so far today.
Five years on Paradise Island
Party on
As big as it gets
Team PokerStars Pros
A peek at paradise
early musings
The online invasion
Honorary members of the team
A sample of the field
Fossilman on the up
A tale of two Gavins
Not the softest table
Of all the tables in the room, he sits down at mine
Some words with the Bear
The four corners
Fifteen minutes
If that isn’t enough to sate your appetite, we now have a first look at the insanely-big PokerStars PCA welcome party.
Watch PCA 09: The welcome party on PokerStars.tv
We’ll all be back here at 9pm ET to pick up the action.