Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Brian “sbrugby” Townsend wrote in his blog that he had his best ever day of poker, where he ended up $1.85 MILLION DOLLARS!  He played against Sammy Farha, Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Bobby Baldwin and a few others and ended up a huge winner.

Here is the entire entry:

“Just finished playing a 18 hour session of 500/1000 and 1000/2000 NLH and PLO mix. I ended up 1.858 million dollars which beats my previous best day by 3x the amount. Over the last three days, I finished up 1.52 million dollars (I had forgotten that I spent 40K on the PLO w/rebuy tourney). The game started with Sammy and I playing HU which resulted in me starting out up about 1 million dollars. Then the game began to fill with Bobby Baldwin, David Benyamine, Patrik Antonious, Brandon Adams, Nenad Medic, Rafi Amit and a few others that aren’t coming to me right now. For most of the day and evening it was David, Patrick, Sammy, Bobby and I playing.I was very impressed with Bobby Baldwin’s play. He hardly ever plays poker anymore since he manages the Bellagio but he was sitting playing 4 handed at the end of the night with me, Patrik, and Sammy. Bobby was definitely holding his own and I was extremely suprised with how well he played. Most famous poker players are not very good and overrated — this was not the case with Bobby; he had a great sense of people. One hand I raised UTG in PLO he called on the button and Sammy called in the big blind. Flop came TT4 and we all checked turn came a 5 and it was checked through again. The river came an ace and it was checked to Bobby who said “Sammy your ten is good.” Sammy then sheepishly turned over a ten.

“Congrats Brian you rich bastard!

Brandi Hawbaker and David Sklansky were spotted together in an Interview by the World Series of Poker.  Brandi refers to Sklansky as her “Poker Dad” which is kind of creepy.  I suspect he is probably backing her because he mentions that “we were a little annoyed” when talking about how Brandi was eliminated thinking she had made if over one of the bubbles at 54 players, when there were still 55 players left.  If you are a Brandi fanatic, you can catch the whole video here:

Brandi Hawbaker and David Sklansky Interview

In other Brandi news, a player wrote about her throwing her cards in his face.  I guess she is tired of always being the one to take it in the face.

PokerNews live reporting shows that Vinny Vinh never made it to Day 2 of the $1000 NL Holdem with rebuys tournament today.

At around 4:30pm EST Poker News posted that Vinh had not shown up to play.  They said he started the day 2nd in chips with roughly $200,000 but was slowly being blinded down.

At 7:00pm EST they reported that Vinh still had not shown up.  Friends of Vinh’s including Men “The Master” Nguyen were frantically trying to contact Vinh by cellphone.

Around 10:00pm Vinh’s chips had been blinded off and he was eliminated from the tournament in 20th place, earning $16,232.

There is still no sign of Vinh, but hopefully everything is okay.  We will post more information as we receive it.

Either Tom “durrrr” Dwan is skipping the WSOP right now, sitting out from some of the beginning events or he is just playing online in between events. 

Regardless, does he really need to play when he can make more money playing online at Full Tilt Poker than most of the 1st place payouts for some of the first events at this year’s WSOP.

Dwan spent 6-hours playing online today and at the end of his session he was up $324K.

Here is one of the larger hands from his session:

Full Tilt Poker Game #2593474425: Table Brookview (6 max)
$200/$400 - Pot Limit Omaha - 22:37:34 ET - 2007/06/05
Seat 2: bacina ($19,870)
Seat 4: Stinko_Mikko ($58,193)
Seat 6: durrrr ($63,080.50)
durrrr posts the small blind of $200
bacina posts the big blind of $400
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Stinko_Mikko raises to $1,400
durrrr raises to $4,600
bacina calls $4,200
Stinko_Mikko calls $3,200
*** FLOP *** [5c Kh 2d]
durrrr checks
bacina checks
Stinko_Mikko bets $13,800
durrrr calls $13,800
bacina folds
*** TURN *** [5c Kh 2d] [Qs]
durrrr bets $41,400
Stinko_Mikko calls $39,793, and is all in
durrrr shows [As Ks 8c 9s]
Stinko_Mikko shows [4d 6h Qh 3d]
Uncalled bet of $1,607 returned to durrrr
*** RIVER *** [5c Kh 2d Qs] [3c]
durrrr shows a pair of Kings
Stinko_Mikko shows a straight, Six high
Stinko_Mikko wins the pot ($120,985) with a straight, Six high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $120,986 | Rake $1
Board: [5c Kh 2d Qs 3c]
Seat 2: bacina (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: Stinko_Mikko (button) showed [4d 6h Qh 3d] and won ($120,985) with a straight, Six high
Seat 6: durrrr (small blind) showed [As Ks 8c 9s] and lost with a pair of Kings

Yesterday I posted a story Tony G is Pissed at Cardplayer.

Foruntately, Tony G is in a better mood today after being contacted by Cardplayer.  In his blog, Tony wrote:

“CardPlayer has contacted PokerNews and agreed to follow the guidelines of the WSOP and Harrahs in media reporting of tournament events and not use any of PokerNews’ live blogging reports.  CardPlayer has also agreed to meet with me when I come to Vegas - that will be within about two weeks. 

Thank you CardPlayer for respecting the rights of PokerNews and for putting a smile back on my face.  Now let’s all play poker!”

I guess that’ll teach them to mess with a guy “from the streets”.  (Note the sarcasm..LOL!)

Ciarin O’leary was announced the winner in the 2007 WSOP Event #3 today.  O’leary started the day with $610,000 in chips.  At one point during the day, he was in last place with only $380,000 chips left.  He doubled up a few times and managed to make his way to the final two.

O’leary and Paul Evans went at it heads up for only two hands.  In the last hand, O’leary dominated Evans with his K 10 against Evans’ 6 3.  Both players hit on the flop (K 6 2), but O’leary’s pair of Kings held up, eliminating Evans in 2nd place.

The payouts for this event were as follows:

Ciaran O’Leary — $727,012 + WSOP Bracelet
Paul Evans — $450,150
Alex Jacob — $282,367
Jeff Yoak — $184,152
Craig Crivello — $128,907
Andreas Krause — $94,122
Thad Smith — $73,661
Bart Hanson — $55,246
Matt Vengrin — $43,378