Olsdog’s Blog

Thousands of people use the services of Ladbrokes to satisfy their online poker needs every day. But most of them can only dream of accomplishing what their fellow Ladbrokes peer Peter “Pete4002″ Eastgate has managed to do.

The 22 year-old from Odense, Denmark has managed to become one of the final nine players left in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event. Peter made it through the tough 6,844 player field to the final table where major guaranteed money awaits.

In fact, even if Peter busts out before everyone else at the table, he’ll still be guaranteed $900,670. But he’ll have to wait quite a while before finding out where he’ll finish as the WSOP Main Event final table won’t take place until November 9th.

Many people from Ladbrokes were extremely happy to see Peter Eastgate make it this far, including the MD of Ladbrokes, Edward Ihre.

Ihre commented on Eastgate by saying, “It’s great to see a Ladbrokes Poker player make it through to the final table. He has done brilliantly, and is definitely a top-class pro in the making. We’re proud to call him a Ladbrokes regular, he’s qualified through to the televised stages of Poker Million twice (2006 and 2007), so he’s no stranger to high stakes pressure.”

Eastgate will be entering the contest in fourth place with a total of 18,375,000 chips which gives him a strong chance to survive deep into the last leg of the lengthy Main Event.

Last week marked the first time in a while that the May and June Ladbrokes Leaderboards monthly champion SOXxxxxx wasn’t in the lead.  That’s because cantona2243 was in charge after the first week in July.

The question many Ladbrokes players were wondering though is just how long cantona 2243 would stay in the lead.  The answer would be not long as SOXxxxxx wasted no time in relieving cantona2243 from the lead.

However, a twist would occur when SOXxxxxxx would quickly lose the lead to the champion from April in wildrick.  And ever since Thursday wildrick has been in the lead.   See this here.

Since the point where wildrick has taken over, he has been able to increase his lead over cantona2243.  wildrick is currently leading in the race for the monthly $2,000 prize by 145 points.  cantona2243 is still leading over SOXxxxxx for the second place prize of $1,250 by 104 points.

Here’s the top 10 as it stands now:

Rank/Player/Points
1. wildrick 813.00
2. cantona2243 668.00
3. SOXxxxxx 562.00
4. snowee 506.00 
5. TVHDK 492.00
6. mitchhh 486.00
7. 1111poker 453.00
8. Madison_dk 436.00 
9. drewster33 429.00 
10. mrpipespb 428.00 

With only half of the World Series of Poker Main Event done, there is still plenty of time for players to make a move. In fact, they are still playing split days at the Rio with day 2a coming to a close early this morning.

But Brian Schaedlich isn’t waiting to make a move in the WSOP Main Event. He’s doing quite well already. The man from Chagrin Falls, Ohio doesn’t have much name recognition going for him, but that hasn’t fazed Schaedlich one bit.

Schaedlich has been the dominant player by far in the early going as he leads all players with 500,000 chips at the end of day 2a. He was second in chips after day 1b, but bolted out to the lead at the end of this day.

What’s interesting about Schaedlich is that he won his way in the Main Event by winning a $135 satellite at the Mountaineer Racetrack Casino in West Chester, WV.

Trailing Schaedlich in second place is Hunter Frey who has 378,000 chips while David Rheem is in second place with 284,000. Those familiar with poker will see a recognizable face with Robert Mizrachi in fourth with 242,000 chips.

Some players that did well only to find themselves out of the tourney on this day were Sveltlana Gromenkova and Perry Friedman. There will certainly be more to join these two as day 2b of the WSOP kicks off today at 12:00 p.m. PT.

With just a couple of days left in the month, it appeared as if SOXxxxxx would be within striking range of repeating the position of monthly champion of the Ladbrokes Leaderboards. However, his lead was dwindling and wildrick, who was in second place, had been closing the gap over the last week. This meant that SOXxxxxx might have a little competition going towards the end of the month. In reality though, SOXxxxxx really didn’t have much competition as he was able to increase his 164 point lead to a comfortable 255 point margin and runaway with the victory.

The $2,000 first place prize was SOXxxxxx for the second month in a row and wildrick settled for the 2nd place prize of $1,250. JellyHead30 was a distant third from the two and received $900 for the effort. See the final results here.

As for the start of July, SOXxxxxx and wildrick have both made appearances at the top of the leaderboard so far but they have yet to stick there. So far, the top player has been cantona2243 who leads all players with 455 points. Trailing cantona2243 is a familiar face, SOXxxxxx. He has 416 points.

Here’s the rest of the top 10 so far:

Rank/Player/Points
1 cantona2243 455
2 SOXxxxxx 416
3 Dopeychick01 366
4 wildrick 310
5 WHU145 280
6 dylanist 231
7 drewster33 219
8 thechipmaker 212
9 lucky2611 206
10 Wizer1 205

After the Intense H.O.R.S.E. event that saw many of poker’s top players battling for over $7 million, some stars made the insane decision to jump right into the Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo tournament and play.

Among them were Chris Ferguson, Tony G, Kathy Liebert, Hoyt Corkins, and Men Nguyen. Joining them were 543 players who spent $1,500 to make the prize pool worth $741,195.

A lot of the top players were able to move on past the first day, but those that didn’t included Kathy Liebert, Kristy Gazes, and David Williams. Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, David Sklansky, and Annie Duke were among the players who had no trouble surviving this day.

Day 2 would see a number of these players fall by the wayside though as Hellmuth, Duke, and Toney G would all be among the bustouts. Hellmuth did manage to cash though as did the aforementioned Nguyen.

By the time that the final table was set, this is what it resembled:

Seat/Player/Chips
Seat 1: Tim D’Alessandro - 140,000
Seat 2: Jonas Klausen - 338,000
Seat 3: David Sklasnsky - 66,000
Seat 4: Josh Feldman - 200,000
Seat 5: Ryan Hughes - 400,000
Seat 6: Ron Long - 224,000
Seat 7: Alessio Isaia - 220,000
Seat 8: Thomas Hunt - 31,000

No one really stood out at the top of the leaderboard, but there were a couple of players who stood out at the bottom due to their low stacks. David Sklansky happened to be one of them and was eliminated as two players split the pot and his all-in call yielded nothing for him.

Jonas Klausen knocked Josh Feldman out in 7th place when he held aces and kings against Feldman’s jacks and 9’s. Joining him would be Tim D’Alessandro as both him and Thomas Hunt got full houses but Hunt’s was better.

5th place would go to Jonas Klausen when Ron Long scooped the pot against him with the low and high hand. Alessio Isaia wouldn’t be around any longer either as Ryan Hughes eliminated him.

That left Thomas Hunt to be the last player sent to the rail before heads-up play began. Hughes did the honors again when Hunt couldn’t make a low and only had 2’s for high against Hughes 3’s.

This left Hughes and Ron Long with Ryan holding a big 1,317,000 to 315,000 chip lead. Eventually, Long went all-in and Hughes made a full house against Long’s kings.

This gave Hughes the dubious distinction of winning the same event in back-to-back WSOP.

Here’s how everyone else did:

Rank/Player/Money
1. Ryan Hughes $183,368
2. Ronald Long $113,240
3. Thomas Hunt III $68,686
4. Alessio Isaia $50,122
5. Jonas Klausen $39,355
6. Tim D’alessandro $30,444
7. Joshua Feldman $23,019
8. David Sklansky $19,306
9. James Richburg $15,593
10. Margaret Macre $15,593
11. Daniel Nicewander $11,880
12. David Brooker $11,880
13. Mike Hefer $8,168
14. Ta Hoang $8,168
15. Dennis Seagle $6,237
16. Vince Burgio $6,237
17. Men Nguyen $4,752
18. Lawrence Kozlove $4,752
19. Travis Erdman $4,752
20. Morgan Stringham $4,752
21. George Markakis $4,752
22. Chris Bjorin $4,752
23. Constantine Zdanowich $4,752
24. John Bunch $4,752
25. Steven Metzger $3,638

For those who thought that the major money would all be seen in the Main Event of the 2008 WSOP, they were proven wrong in a big way with the World Championship H.O.R.S.E tournament.

That’s because 148 players paid the mind-boggling $50,000 buy-in to make the prize pool worth $7,104,000. And many of those involved were among the top names in poker since this event, consisting of multiple card games, often defines the champ of champs.

People like Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Scotty Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, and Gus Hanson were all trying to knock off the defending champion Freddy Deeb.

Speaking of getting knocked out of the tournament, Phil Hellmuth and David Williams were a couple of the unlucky ones to do so. Here’s how the leaderboards shook out after the first day:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. James Mackey 214,000
2. Pat Pezzin 200,400
3. Joe Cassidy 198,700
4. Ralph Perry 195,300
5. Stephen Wolff 192,700
6. Fu Wong 188,100
7. Douglas Ganger 183,200
8. Bill Chen 182,500

The field finally started getting trimmed down on the second day as Allen Kessler, Annie Duke, Chris Ferguson, Tony G, and defending champ Freddy Deeb were all sent to the rail. In all, just 67 people would be coming back for day 3 and here is how the leaderboard looked after day 2:

1. Lyle Berman 507,000
2. Patrick Bueno 485,500
3. Barry Greenstein 473,000
4. Minh Ly 451,000
5. Chris Reslock 435,500
6. Joseph Michael 401,000
7. Erick Lindgren 397,500
8. Justin Bonomo 384,000
9. Daniel Negreanu 374,500
10. Doyle Brunson 366,000

The third day of the H.O.R.S.E. tournament wouldn’t go so well for Tom Dwan, Max Pescatori, Justin Bonomo, and Layne Flack. They would all be bounced from the tournament. 24 players were fortunate enough to make it to the last three tables and here’s the most fortunate of the group:

1. Michael DeMichele 1,351,000
2. Barry Greenstein 1,311,000
3. Daniel Negreanu 1,226,000
4. Ralph Perry 1,043,000
5. Scotty Nguyen 1,033,000
6. Lyle Berman 939,000
7. Patrick Bueno 806,000
8. David Bach 801,000
9. Doyle Brunson 777,000
10. Michael Mizrachi 701,000

Just 16 players needed to bust out for the final table to be complete and among these bust outs were Doyle Brunson, Andy Bloch, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey. By the time everything was said and done, here’s how the final table looked:

Seat/Player/Chips
Seat 1: Matt Glantz 1,445,000
Seat 2: Huck Seed 1,200,000
Seat 3: Patrick Bueno 695,000
Seat 4: Lyle Berman 1,430,000
Seat 5: Scotty Nguyen 3,535,000
Seat 6: Barry Greenstein 1,955,000
Seat 7: Michael DeMichele 905,000
Seat 8: Erick Lindgren 3,680,000

Patrick Bueno had the shortest stack coming into the final table and it wouldn’t go very far for him. He was knocked out in Razz by Erick Lindgren. Huck Seed’s diminishing stack doomed him to 7th place after he was eliminated by Michael DeMichele in Stud 8’s or Better.

Barry Greenstein tasted defeat when his two-pair was outdone by Scotty Nguyen’s set of 7’s. Lyle Berman would be next to go in 5th place as the World Poker Tour founder made a strong showing at this event.

4th place would go to Matthew Glantz when Nguyen scooped the pot against him in Omaha 8’s or Better. Erick Lindgren’s up and down final table run came to a screeching halt after he could get nothing against Nguyen’s 9 pair in Stud.

That left Scotty and DeMichele to battle it out for top prize. Nguyen finished Michael off rather quickly in Limit Hold’em with a pair of aces and the game was over.

Nguyen had earned himself a fifth bracelet and nearly $2 million to go along with it. Here’s how the rest of the cashers fared.

Rank/Player/Money
1. Scotty Nguyen $1,989,120
2. Mike DeMichele $1,243,200
3. Erick Lindgren $781,440
4. Matt Glantz $568,320
5. Lyle Berman $444,000
6. Barry Greenstein $355,200
7. Huck Seed $284,160
8. Patrick Bueno $230,880
9. Ralph Perry $177,600
10. Raymond Davis $177,600
11. David Bach $159,840
12. Phil Ivey $159,840
13. Daniel Negreanu $142,080
14. Joseph (Joey) Michael $142,080
15. Andrew Bloch $124,320
16. Doyle Brunson $124,320

Event #43 of the WSOP drew a surprisingly decent number of players for a Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-low Split-8 or Better tournament. In all, 720 players paid $1,500 to get into the tournament that had a prize pool just under one million dollars.

Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, Lee Watkinson, Tom Schneider, and Joe Hachem all took part in this tourney where around 100 players per hour were eliminated on the first day making things go rather quickly.

Greenstein and Schneider would be a couple of these unfortunate players along with people like Clonie Gowen, Gavin Smith, and Dutch Boyd.

By the end of the day, the leaderboards looked like this:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. Ed Smith 119,500
2. Shannon Shorr 86,900
3. Damon Singer 80,400
4. Martin Klaser 79,800
5. Larry Wright 75,300
6. Sam Khoueis 73,000
7. Gabe Costner 69,200
8. Jeff Bryan 66,900
9. Bryan Jolly 63,300
10. Erik Seidel 58,900

Only 68 people would be back for day 2 which made it so only 59 players had to be knocked out for the last table to be finalized. By the end, hardly any big name players would be left standing for day 3.

Erik Seidel and Tom Chambers were probably the most recognizable players left and here’s how things looked overall for the final table:

Seat/Player/Chips
Seat 1: Joseph Haddad – 135,000
Seat 2: Tom Chambers - 263,000
Seat 3: Larry Wright - 117,000
Seat 4: Chad Burum - 117,000
Seat 5: Michael Fetter - 288,000
Seat 6: Casey Kastle - 188,000
Seat 7: Jon Maren - 377,000
Seat 8: Martin Klaser - 337,000
Seat 9: Erik Seidel - 340,000

Tom Chambers stay at the final table would be a short one since he was the first one knocked out after Casey Kastle scooped the pot with a flush and nut low.

Larry Wright would take 8th place and Joseph Haddad went out next after Martin Klasser got lucky by flopping a wheel even though his hole cards were way worse than Haddad’s.

Chad Burum put the rest of his puny stack in and Martin Klasser also dealt him an exit card. 5th place would go to Jon Maren when Kastle was lucky enough to squeak by with a pair of 6’s.

Erik Seidel, who brought plenty of experience to the table, wouldn’t be carrying this final table experience on any longer when Kastle got a full house against his all-in call.

Heads-up play would be determined after Michael Fetter went out in 3rd. Fetter was only able to make a pair of 10’s while Klasser hit trips 7’s to win the hand.

Klasser went into play with Kastle holding a sizeable chip advantage and used this to intimidate Kastle with big bets making him fold quite often.

In the end, Kastle had to call with just a little bit of a stack remaining and was beaten by queens when he held jacks. Klasser raked $216,249 for the victory.

Here’s how others fared:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. Martin Klaser $216,249
2. Casey Kastle $137,985
3. Michael Fetter $83,538
4. Erik Seidel $68,304
5. Jon Maren $56,019
6. Chad Burum $44,226
7. Joseph Haddad $34,398
8. Larry Wright $27,027
9. Tom Chambers $19,656
10. Daniel Klein $12,285
11. Derek Kadota $12,285
12. Gary Hutzler $12,285
13. Mark Gallo $9,828
14. Douglas Mandeville $9,828
15. Jim Geary $9,828
16. James Griffith $7,371
17. Mikhail Ustinov $7,371
18. Ian Graham $7,371
19. Daniel Adams $5,601
20. David Manz $5,601
21. Laurent Lefrancq $5,601
22. Brent Carter $5,601
23. Ed Smith $5,601
24. Samir Khoueis $5,601
25. Shannon Shorr $5,601

The 2008 WSOP continued its trend of offering something for nearly everyone in the Seniors No Limit Hold’em World Championship. 2,218 seniors came calling with their $1,000 bets upfront and their buy-ins created a prize pool of $2,018,380.

Even though this was a seniors event, that didn’t mean there was any lack of talent in the field. Johnny Chan, Amarillo “Slim” Preston, Men Nguyen, Mike Caro and Avery Cardoza all participated in this tournament.

Preston, Nguyen, and Cardoza all did well enough to move onto day 2 and joined the 220 person crowd that would be competing for the 198 spots that cashed in the tourney.

Here’s how the top 10 looked:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. Duane Gerleman - 139,800
2. Steve Fager - 101,700
3. Dale Eberle - 86,200
4. Tom Franklin - 84,100
5. Men Nguyen - 81,500
6. Dempster Ross - 75,800
7. Avery Cardoza - 73,100
8. Ralph Wetterhahn - 70,800
9. Gregory Alston - 69,000
10. Lonnie Boeding — 68,500

Day 2 would be a different story for most of the players in the top 10 as other people in the field began making a move towards securing a spot in the top 9.

The bigger names like Preston, Cardoza, and Nguyen were among those whose fortunes would change for the worse on the second day. The people who made the final table are as follows:

Seat/Player/Chips
Seat 1: Marc Fluss – 873,000
Seat 2: Charles Wood – 531,000
Seat 3: Ed Clark – 504,000
Seat 4: Marty Wilson – 454,000
Seat 5: Peter Silverstein – 435,000
Seat 6: Dale Eberle – 1,414,000
Seat 7: Fred Berger – 518,000
Seat 8: Dan Lacourse – 1,364,000
Seat 9: Jerry Yamachika – 558,000

Marty Wilson came in with one of the smaller stacks to start the day and it never really got any bigger for him as Fred Berger flopped a set of queens to beat him. A set would be the reason for another elimination in Ed Clark as it was Marc Fluss hitting it this time.

7th place would belong to Pet Silverstein as he was forced to go all-in with a dwindling stack and it didn’t pay off for him. Marc Fluss knocked Charles Wood out of the tournament next when he simply held a better hole combo in K-10 to K-6.

Fred Berger made a mistake when he went all-in with pocket 2’s only to be eliminated when Dan Lacourse’s pocket jacks turned into a set.

Jerry Yamachika had been doing well earlier but he would take 4th after Lacourse had a pair of queens against nothing. Lacourse narrowed things down to heads-up when he took out Marc Fluss next.

Down to him and Dale Eberle, Lacourse would flop a set of 9’s on the final hand to win the seniors tourney and get $368,832 in the process.

Here’s how the top 25 faired:

Rank/Player/Money
1. Dan Lacourse $368,832
2. Dale Eberle $235,141
3. Marc Fluss $156,424
4. Jerry Yamachika $131,194
5. Fred Berger $106,974
6. Charles Wood $84,771
7. Peter Silverstein $64,588
8. Edward Clark $49,450
9. Martin (Marty) Wilson $34,312
10. Ronald Puelo $22,202
11. Mike Allis $22,202
12. Chris Platt $22,202
13. Edgardo Villareal $17,156
14. Mick Bentrup $17,156
15. James Duke $17,156
16. Henry Hudson $12,110
17. John Bonar $12,110
18. Gary Dishongh $12,110
19. Gregory Alston $9,688
20. Michael Thulson $9,688
21. Bobby Bland $9,688
22. Daniel Spear $9,688
23. Duane Gerleman $9,688
24. Harold Hensley $9,688
25. Theodore Brooks $9,688

In last week’s look at the Ladbrokes Leaderboard race, the champion from May in SOXxxxxx took the lead away from wildrick and increased it to a decent margin.  226 points to be exact.

But there was still plenty of time for wildrick to make a move on SOXxxxxx with a week and a half left in the month.  Would he be able to do it?

It depends on how one looks at it.  SOXxxxxx was able to keep his lead all week but wildrick has closed some ground on him to the tune of a 164 point deficit.  See this here. 

However, there are only three days left in the month and SOXxxxxx only lost 34 points off his lead in a whole week.  As long as he keeps playing decent, he should repeat as the monthly champion and get the $2,000.

But wildrick was successful in fending off JellyHead30 who was looking to make a run at the second place money of $1,250.  However, JellyHead30 is over 400 points behind now and appears destined for the 3rd place prize of $900.  See the month here.

Here’s how the top 10 stands heading into the final stretch:

Rank/Player/Points
1. SOXxxxxx 1860.00 
2. wildrick 1696.00 
3. JellyHead30 1265.00 
4. cantona2243 1161.00 
5. playmaker666 1083.00 
6. XjimeggX 992.00 
7. drewster33 954.00 
8. dylanist 856.00 
9. geezus 847.00 
10. FILCH 782.00 

Event #41 of the WSOP brought a mixture of two games in Mixed Hold’em - Limit/No Limit.  731 people paid $1,500 to get into this tourney which featured a prize pool of $996,450.

The 731 number would be cut all the way down to 98 by the time things wrapped up on day 1.  People like Greg Raymer, Tom Schneider, Carlos Mortensen, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, and Kenny Tran were all hoping to make it past the first day.

Unfortunately for all of them, they were early exits from the tourney and others who would join them later included Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Joe Hachem, and Andy Bloch.

Jonathan Tamayo shot to the top of the leaderboard when all was said and done.  Here was the whole top 10 for day 1:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. Jonathan Tamayo — 98,100
2. Ricky Sanders — 88,000
3. Klein Bach — 65,600
4. Daniel Kraus — 49,975
5. Jose Tavares — 48,900
6. Alexander Borteh —  46,950
7. Peter Rho — 46,000
8. Otto Richard — 45,700
9. Benjamin Landowski — 44,425
10. Heung Yoon — 42,400

Day 2 would see a dramatic turnaround as far as the leaderboards went.  Not really for Jonathan Tamayo who was the only one from the top 10 to score a seat at the final table.  But for the other 9, it would be curtains for this tourney.

But at least the majority of them had the privilege of cashing whereas Bob Lauria made it all the way to 73rd place which was right outside of the money range.

Those that would be competing for big money at the final table included:

Seat/Player/Chips
Seat 1: Chris Rentes - 132,000
Seat 2: Michael Chu - 264,000
Seat 3: Alex Jalali -  204,000
Seat 4: Nick Binger - 339,000
Seat 5: David Machowsky - 147,500
Seat 6: Jonathan Tamayo - 238,500
Seat 7: Mats Gavatin - 405,000
Seat 8: Frank Gary - 332,000
Seat 9: David Sorger - 130,000

The beginning of this final table looked as if it would be all Nick Binger as he quickly busted out David Sorger and Michael Chu right away. 

Then he set his sights on the Swede Mats Gavatin as he hit trip 7’s on the flop and Gavatin couldn’t get his flush draw.  David Machowsky would be the next victim of Binger as he finished in 6th when Binger hit a set of aces on the flop.

5th place would belong to Alex Jalali when he couldn’t pair an ace against - you guessed it - Nick Binger.  Binger would knock out Chris Rentes and his short stack next with a weird winner in 7-high.

But the tide would soon turn as Tamayo took big pot after big pot from Binger.  In the end, things looked good for Binger to make a comeback as he held a straight only to see Frank Gary river a full house.

This left things down to heads-up play between day 1 leader Tamayo and Gary.  Tamayo had lost some of his stack before heads-up play began and it would take long for Gary to win with a pair of aces after Jonathan’s all-in call.

The retired, RV traveling Gary had won his first WSOP bracelet and $219,217 as well.  Here’s how the top 25 looked:

Rank/Player/Money
1. Frank Gary $219,562 
2. Jonathan Tamayo $140,093 
3. Nick Binger $84,814 
4. Chris Rentes $69,348 
5. Alex Jalali $56,875 
6. David Machowsky $44,901 
7. Mats Gavatin $34,923 
8. Michael Chu $27,439 
9. David Sorger $19,956 
10. Todd Witteles $12,472 
11. Justin St. John $12,472 
12. Sam Hiatt $12,472 
13. Elliot Smith $9,978 
14. Hien Tran $9,978 
15. Klein Bach $9,978 
16. Daniel Kraus $7,483 
17. Jeff Norman $7,483 
18. Anh Van Nguyen $7,483 
19. Michael Rosenthal $5,687 
20. Alexander Borteh $5,687 
21. Ricky Sanders $5,687 
22. Peter Rho $5,687 
23. Nicholas Ragot $5,687 
24. Michele Guzzardi $5,687 
25. Jason Ruffinelli $5,687