Things are going rapidly now half way through day one of the final table. Everyone has started making bold moves and the chip count board is all over the place. Its hard to keep up with the action.
O’Dea goes all in with pocket sevens and Staszko folds. O’Dea is obviously trying to get a bigger chip count. After a little scuffle with Giannetti Heinz steps into the chip lead. Positions are changing rapidly. Holden goes all in on the button and takes it from Bunahara making O’Dea the short stack. O’Dea goes all in against Giannetti forcing a fold and increasing his stack.
Collins and Lamb go head to head but Collins quickly folds. A few quick hands but nothing special. Level ends with Heinz in the lead and Makiievski in ninth position.
The players take a break.
Lamb calls 9 million and Holden goes all in. Lamb has AK and Holden has AJ. The flop is 9-8-A. [...]
The play so far at the 2011 WSOP final table has been nothing if not interesting but in the final hour of level 37 professional goes against newbee at an astounding rate.
Staszko holds his own against Ben Lamb and wins the pot with a re-raise before a flop ever happened. Heinz and Collins go at it again Heinz re raises over $2 million to Collins $500K. After some deliberation Collins re-raises to $4.5 million and things start to get tense. Heinz goes all in with A-K and wins a $24 million pot. A little new school teaching old school. Heinz goes into fourth place.
Giannetti and Bounahra go head to head with a flop of J-Q-9 but Bounahra folds against Giannetti’s straight draw.
Heinz, O’Dea and Lamb enjoy a little action creating a $10 million pot before the flop. Lamb folds before the flop. Flop is 8-8-4. O’Dea bets $4.6 million and the pot keeps climbing. Heinz [...]
Bounahra is aggressively protecting his short stack raising to $1.6 million, forcing Holden to fold. He takes another coupe of hands and enjoys interacting with the crowd. Heinz too is trying to make his chip count and raises a million to Statsko and wins against the chip leader’s pocket sevens. Up to 19 million in chips, almost 3 million more than he started with.
Lamb shows his face with a raise on the button and takes an easy uncontested pot. Holden goes all in against Bounahra and gets a chip count of just over $10 million. Collins makes a little noise with a raise on the button and you can see all the other players debating heads up play with the professional. Heinz takes the chance and Collins folds to Heinz’s re-raise. A bold move for the German. Heinz is obviously happy with his win probably gaining valuable play information against Collins.
Lamb retaliates by raising Heinz [...]
Heinz comes out strong with a $1.2 million raise and O’Dea calls. Being the short stack Heinz has to be careful but he raised again after the flop of Q-6-3 to $1.42 million. O’Dea calls. Heinz checks and the turn is a jack. Both check and the river is an eight. Heinz holds on with another bet for $2.3 million. O’Dea folds and Heinz gets a little closer to a comfortable chip count. The crowd and the commentators seemed convinced that Heinz was on the way out but the surprising win has ignited the audience.
Heinz keeps it up with a quick win against Holden. Next new short stack Banahra folds trying to hold on a little longer. O’Dea raises to $1.3 million. Lamb folds the big bind to give O’Dea an easy victory. The hands are playing out short and fast with players alternating between aggressive play and cautious bets. O’Dea is becoming one of [...]
After the phrase “shuffle up and deal” the crowd broke out into an excited roar so much so I thought I was watching a European soccer match. A quietly excited November nine began to play all eagerly participating in the game that could change their lives forever.
With approx. 37 minutes left on the level it was a short introduction to the 2011WSOP Main Event final table with some surprising choices from the well rested players. The first flop was a K-7-J and with little contest Phil Collins took the first pot. Irishman O’Dea took second but Collins came back to take the third pot. Holden came out strong on the button and bet blind making an easy win as every other player folded. Things got a little more intense on the fifth in heads up play between Giannetti and Collins ending with Collins folding his A-10 to Giannetti’s K-10.
Heinz came into the game on the [...]
Czech native Martin Staszko is the first player from his country to get to the final table. That makes three right? He has seven cash winnings and just over $91K in earnings going into this event which is the largest of his professional career. Did I mention he is the chip leader going in? Here’s a few recent stats. Staszko, outside of the WSOP win, has not made too much of a splash yet.
Pokerstars.com EPT Barcelona Estrellas Poker Tour No Limit Hold’em 11th $6,886 Aug 30, 2011
42nd World Series of Poker 2011WSOP No Limit Hold’em 58th $10,156 Jul 5, 2011
42nd World Series of Poker 2011WSOP Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better 39th $5,874 Jun 30, 2011
42nd World Series of Poker 2011WSOP No Limit Hold’em 112th $4,242 Jun 25, 2011
42nd World Series of Poker 2011WSOP No Limit Hold’em 185th $2,603 Jun 19, 2011
Unibet OpenMain Event – No Limit Hold’em 10th $11,763 [...]
Ben Lamb is an American poker player from Tulsa, OK and has played poker professionally since 2004. His screen name is “Benba” and he likes to play online and live events. Lamb was a regular on the big three poker sites that went down on Black Friday so may be taking more time to work on his live game. Lamb never finished college and before he was a professional poker player he was a dealer at what now is the Hard Rock Casino in Tulsa.
Lamb is only 26 years old and recently moved from Tulsa to Vegas to put all his effort into developing his successful poker career. Onlinepoker.net states that Lamb’s talent comes from his ability to mix things up a little and adapt his play to the situation. Great skills for any poker player to master. He’s a pleasure to watch play cards as you can almost see the gears whirring in his [...]
From Cologne, Germany Pius Heinz is 22 years and the first German to reach the final table. All his interviews depict him as cool, cam and confident. Well, for now…
Pius spent the summer moving to Vienna rather than paying in many tournaments. The few he did enter didn’t go so well. Well officially…side games proved lucrative. This year’s Main Event was Pius’ first so like his Ukrainian opponent luck really seemed to be on his side. That’s not saying he didn’t play well.
Heinz is better known for his online pay where he works under the handle MastaP89. Here’s some recent results:
Jan 8th, 2011 $320 NL Hold’em [$150K Guaranteed], on PokerStars. 1st place for $29,648.55
May 18th, 2011 SCOOP-28-L: $11+R NL Hold’em on PokerStars. 3rd place for $19,920.24
May 10th, 2011 SCOOP-08-L: $11 NL Hold’em on PokerStars. 2nd place for $15,641.37
$11+R NL Hold’em [$70K Gtd] PokerStars Oct 16th, 2011 Position-15 Won—$ 466.74
$215 Sunday Million [$1M Gtd] [...]
22 year old Brit Sam Holden is a favorite to win this year’s WSOP. He is making the transition from online to offline play and apparently doing it quite well.
Holden went from a successful online player to the sweetheart poker player of the UK. He was a big player on PokerStars and Full Tilt like so many other pros. His online name is “SamDMND.” Holden has only played poker in a professional capacity for one year. Talk about a great way to start out.Here are some recent stats:
Apr 17th, 2011 Sunday Million [$1M Guaranteed], on PokerStars. 5th place for $54,390.00
The Big $109 [NLHE, $50K Guaranteed], on PokerStars. 2nd place for $11,205.0$7,200.00
May 2nd, 2011 $45,000 Guarantee, on Full Tilt Poker. 2nd place for $7,200.00
No Limit Hold’em PokerStars Oct 9th, 2011 4:45 PM $ 44,000.00 $ 22 53 $ 198.0019.37
The Bigger $55 [$200K Gtd] PokerStars Oct 9th, 2011 3:00 PM $ 266,700.00 $ 55 656 $ [...]
21 year old Anton Makiievskyi hails from the Ukraine and is considered the long shot in this year’s final table. He has the second to last smallest chip count out of the nine. Four Ukrainian poker players won gold bracelets during this year’s main event but Anton is the only one ever to reach the final table.
This year’s main event was Anton’s first visit to the United States. He came to live out his poker dream by paying in the world series of poker. I’m pretty sure he didn’t think he’d hit the final table first time out. In interviews with Anton he has spoken about which of his fellow players he thinks will win suggesting not too much confidence in his own abilities. Did he reach the final table by chance? His poker profile is pretty slim compared to his opponents:
WSOP 2011: Final Table
2011 WSOP Europe Event #4: No-Limit Hold’em Shootout for Position—19 [...]
