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Posts Tagged ‘Levy’

With the World Series of Poker in full swing, most of the world’s professionals have descended upon Las Vegas for their chance at fame and fortune. That has provided some relief for those who have opted to stay at home and grind online, with the usual shark-infested waters of the Super Tuesday perhaps now a little safer for swimming.

Adam “Roothlus” Levy is one who would be very familiar with the torturous WSOP grind, but his decision to grind online has paid off handsomely with an impressive victory today.

A total of 349 players took the opportunity in the weekly $ 1,050 Super Tuesday event on PokerStars, eclipsing the $ 300,000 guarantee.

The top 45 players would see cash added to their accounts, with ch0ppy from Canada the unfortunate bubble of the $ 2,094 min-cash.

Previous Super Tuesday winners wizowizo (38th – $ 2,094), Gambit360 (32nd – $ 2,268.50), zwacke (20th – $ 2,617.50) and PKaiser (17th – $ 3,490) were amongst the money finishers while Nicholas “rounder63″ Carrillo (28th – $ 2,268.50) and James “Jaylee18″ Lee (15th – $ 4,362.50) also returned a handy profit.

After a little over seven and a half hours of play, it was Austrian young_diam18 who bubbled the final table. young_diam18 four-bet and then called it off with [jd][jh], only to discover that tonkaaaa held a monster [kd][kc]. The board ran out without another jack to see our final table of nine set:

Final Table Lineup

Seat 1: Glebarm (341,317 in chips)

Seat 2: muttern3k (194,482 in chips)

Seat 3: tonkaaaa (358,768 in chips)

Seat 4: Roothlus (120,748 in chips)

Seat 5: Openshoves85 (241,153 in chips)

Seat 6: zapacanov (219,461 in chips)

Seat 7: NeillyAA (103,700 in chips)

Seat 8: moukari6 (78,274 in chips)

Seat 9: claudioney18 (87,097 in chips)

With that elimination, tonkaaaa had taken the chip lead, but with the blinds at 2k/4k with a 500 ante, there was still plenty of play ahead of us.

moukari6 was the short stack, and the first to be eliminated. moukari6 opened with a min-raise before claudioney18 three-bet to 19,777 next to speak. Action folded back to moukari6 who didn’t hesitate to move all in with [ac][kc] as claudioney18 made the call holding [7h][7c].

moukari6 was looking for some help, and got it when the flop landed [2d][ah][4c], but the [7s] turn card was the nail in the coffin as moukari6 was drawing dead. The river was the [2s] as moukari had to be content with $ 6,107.50 for 9th place.

Adam “Roothlus” Levy was one to give up WSOP glory in favour of the online grind, and he made a nice early double up through zapacanov. Levy moved all in with pocket kings which held against zapacanov’s pocket jacks to bring Levy back into contention.

One of the more interesting hands saw NeillyAA find a big double up with pocket aces against the pocket tens of muttern3k. Perhaps it wasn’t the hand itself, but the banter in the chat box that followed.

NeillyAA said, “ill take 62.25k now”

NeillyAA said, “or play out”

NeillyAA said, “ur choice;”

muttern3k said, “sounds fair”

NeillyAA said, “k click deal”

muttern3k said, “done”

Roothlus said, “lol”

NeillyAA said, “sick offer imo”

muttern3k was crippled after that hand, but managed to catch a couple of double ups to stay alive. It was all for nothing though as muttern3k got tangled up in a pot against Levy. The board read [Kh][3s][8c][Tc] after muttern3k had raised preflop and fired bets on the flop and turn. From the big blind, Levy check-raised all in and muttern3k went deep into the tank before emerging with a call holding [ts][9c] for just a pair of tens. He trailed the [ks][qd] of Levy and it stayed that way when the river bricked the [js]. muttern3k collected $ 8,376 for 8th place.

NeillyAA was pretty happy to have reached five figures, but his comments in the chat box rubbed tonkaaaa the wrong way:

tonkaaaa said, “u see my pic bro? thats me”

NeillyAA said, “ur point?”

tonkaaaa said, “dont use that kinda language”

tonkaaaa said, “its offensive”

NeillyAA said, “oh relax”

NeillyAA said, “its not meant in that context.”

tonkaaaa said, “yah whatever you bigot”

NeillyAA said, “get defensive anytime ne one jokes online, u’ll go far!”

There was certainly tension but it was quickly ended just moments later when the two players went to war with their chips. tonkaaaa opened with a min-raise and Levy flat-called. NeillyAA then squeezed in a three-bet from the big blind before tonkaaaa moved all in. Levy escaped and NeillyAA made the call with [jh][Js] – clearly the danger hand of this final table – as tonkaaaa showed [qc][qs]. It didn’t get any better for NeillyAA as the board arrived [Qd][4s][Ah][4h][2c] to give tonkaaaa the last laugh and NeillyAA $ 11,866 for 7th place.

Just one hand later and we were down to five.

Levy opened with a min-raise to 14,400 from early position before Glebarm three-bet to 32,400 from the big blind. Levy made the call and the flop landed [qs][6d][3d]. Glebarm led out for 49,446 and Levy called as the [2d] appeared on the turn. Another bet followed from Glebarm, this time for the discounted price of 43,200. Again Levy paid to see the [8c] river card complete the board. Glebarm released a third barrel worth 72,545 but Levy moved all in. Glebarm called off his last 138,537 only to discover his [as][qc] top pair had been flushed by the [9d][7d] of Levy. Glebarm was out in 6th for $ 15,356 as Levy was suddenly holding a healthy chip lead.

Openshoves85 got lucky with pocket tens spiking a set to again see pocket jacks cracked as Levy took a small hit. Openshoves85 continued the momentum, making the call holding [as][js] when claudioney18 moved all in for eleven big blinds. claudioney18 could only table a dominated [ac][ts] and couldn’t get ahead on the board of [3s][qc][4s][jc][td]. claudioney18 added $ 19,893 for 5th place.

Again it was only a matter of a few hands between eliminations as zapacanov was next to go. Levy opened with a min-raise to 18,000 before zapacanov moved all in for 160,619. Levy called with [as][9s] and it was the right call as zapacanov opened [ah][4d]. It was all-but-over on the flop as the board ran out [2d][9c][ad][qs][6s] to see zapacanov pick up a very nice $ 28,792.50 for 4th place.

A fast deal is a good deal

At this point the three remaining players entertained some deal discussions as they took a quick look at ICM and chip chop numbers with the following stacks:

Seat 3: tonkaaaa (558,518 in chips)

Seat 4: Roothlus (921,911 in chips)

Seat 5: Openshoves85 (264,571 in chips)

Players quickly agreed to an ICM deal and moments later the cards were back in the air with $ 6,000 and the title to play for.

Openshoves85 probably wished to have waited just one more hand to deal after picking up [ah][as] on the very next hand and doubling through tonkaaaa’s [qh][qd] in a rather brutal three-handed cooler.

With the chips pretty even, the three-handed battle was rather intense until tonkaaaa got his revenge to break the deadlock in another epic hand:

RSS readers click through to see replay
The biggest pot of the tournament saw tonkaaaa’s full house grab the chip lead as Openshoves85 was back on the short stack.

Openshoves85 couldn’t recover after a nice play went unrewarded to be next to fall. tonkaaaa min-raised, before Levy three-bet from the small blind. Openshoves85 then cold four-bet jammed all in with [as][6d] and extracted a call from Levy with his ambitious [7c][6c]. However Levy spiked a couple of sevens on the board of [Kd][7d][Qs][9d][7s] to leave Openshove85 with $ 44,844.79 after the deal negotiations for 3rd place.

Heads-up chip counts

Seat 3: tonkaaaa (747,436 in chips)

Seat 4: Roothlus (997,564 in chips)

Levy held the lead but tonkaaaa was able to gain the ascendency in the early stages until the following hand unfolded:

RSS readers click through to see replay
Levy spiked his straight and extracted maximum value from tonkaaaa’s top pair to see Levy take a commanding chip advantage.

From there, Levy was able to close it out with the final hand coming in a preflop war. tonkaaaa four-bet jammed with [ac][jd] only to discover Levy make the call with a superior [ah][ks]. The final board arrived [5h][8s][qd][4c][6h] to leave tonkaaaa to pick up $ 50,874.57 for second place as Adam “Roothlus” Levy adds a Super Tuesday title and $ 60,807.14 to a poker resume that already has over $ 5 million in combined live and online earnings.

Final table results

1st Roothlus (Canada) – $ 60,807.14*

2nd tonkaaaa (Canada) – $ 50,874.57*

3rd Openshoves85 (Colombia) – $ 44,844.79*

4th zapacanov (Russia) – $ 28,792.50

5th claudioney18 (Brazil) – $ 19,893.00

6th Glebarm (Russia) – $ 15,356.00

7th NeillyAA (Costa Rica) – $ 11,866.00

8th muttern3k (Norway) – $ 8,376.00

9th moukari6 (Finland) – $ 6,107.50

When you watch ESPN’s coverage of the Main Event you’re gonna see some REALLY brutal hands, believe me. But when you’re this close to making the final table, of possibly winning World Championship, every hand that ends a player’s hopes is brutal. It’s brutal to see someone fight and battle for eight days and come this close, only to lose out.

Adam “Roothlus” Levy’s elimination was fairly straightforward compared to some of the horrific exits we’ve seen today. After doubling up early in the day to 11 million Roothlus went completely card-dead, to the point where he went an entire level without winning a hand. When he broke that long dry spell PokerNews reported him saying, “Wow, I won a pot!”. He won another small one soon after and maybe, maybe, that signaled the start of the heater that would carry him to the final table.

But it wasn’t meant to be. Picking up K-Q under the gun Roothlus moved in his last 4 million and couldn’t have felt too good when chipleader Jonathan Duhamel called right behind. Everyone else got out of the way and that’s when Duhamel revealed his pocket Aces. The crowd groaned when they saw how bad the situation was and the 10h-6c-3h flop brought no help. But the Kc on the turn did, and with outs comes hope. But this time those hopes were dashed–the river was a useless 2c, and just like that, after all those hours of battling and grinding and playing his heart out, Adam Levy’s Main Event came to a quiet end.

After talking to his friends on the rail and doing a final interview with ESPN, Adam headed to the exits with his supporters, trailed by the camera crew filming that sad trek to the exit. 7,307 Main Event players preceded him through that door, and that fact (and the $ 635,011 he wins for his 12th-place finish) should provide some solace. As should the fact that he played brilliantly to get so close, so damned close, to making the November Nine.

UB Blog » WSOP

I recently traveled to San Jose for the Bay 101 Shooting Star WPT. For those of you that don’t know it’s a bounty tournament featuring the top 50 poker stars. Players get $ 5,000 for every shooting star they eliminate which adds a pretty interesting dynamic throughout the entire tournament. More so unlike other stops on the WPT this one has tons and tons of people on the rail from the get go. San Jose has the largest poker fan base in the country, and people really come out to rail this tourney, which makes it a cool experience each year.

When I got to my table at the start of day one, my shooting star had not shown up yet. I did have some other well regarded pros at my table such as Shane Schleger and Shawn Buchanan but neither were shooting stars so we started speculating who the shooting star would be. We were told via Twitter it would be Phil Ivey, but the floor guy said it would actually be Yevgeniy Timoshenko or Todd Brunson. Even though Phil Ivey is the best player in the world I was feeling disappointed that I didn’t get to play with him. Even if it might be bad for my tournament, it’s always cool to play with a player of his caliber. Later on we were told we would be the feature table for the day. An hour goes by, no shooting star pro. Another hour goes by and still the seat remains empty. At this point there were only a few stars that hadn’t shown up. Towards the end of level 4 about 3 1/2 hours into the day, Matt Savage, the tournament director, rolls by our table and puts the Phil Ivey bounty shirt on the table and that’s when we realized it actually was Phil Ivey we’d be playing with. With 10 minutes left in the level the great one Phil Ivey shows up and luckily he sits directly to the right of me giving me position on him.

Maybe I shouldnt have felt disappointed when I thought I wouldn’t be playing with him because it ended up leading to my demise. At 150/300 25 online player KingDan raises to 900 from 4th position. A tight player I didn’t recognize flats from the hijack and Phil Ivey flats from the cutoff. I look down to Jacks on the button. Literally the previous hand I had just lost an 18k pot with Jacks and I was visibly frustrated -not tilted but frustrated. I have 18k and I make a reraise to 3800. KingDan deliberates for a little bit and eventually folds. The tight guy folds as well and the action is on Phil Ivey who starts thinking. After a little bit he calls which was definitely surprising to me because it seemed like he had the weakest hand of all the players because he was the second caller of a raise. I wasn’t exactly sure what range to put him on but I was more than confident I had the best hand. The flop comes K93 rainbow and he checks. I probably normally bet here but considering it was Phil Ivey I didn’t. I didn’t feel very comfortable in this particular spot and was hoping he would check the turn so I could get to a showdown rather than put myself in a really tough spot if he check raises all in. The turn comes a K bricking any flush draws. He bets 5500 and in my head I had already decided I was calling the turn and most rivers. This was a very good card for me because now there’s only 2 Kings in the deck that I lose to. The river is a 9 so now the board is K92K9 and Ivey puts me all in. I start thinking about what he could have and he could have a lot of stuff. Then I realize it’s Phil Ivey. He could easily be bluffing here and obviously he could still have a King or a Nine but I had 3-1 odds to call. I called and he flipped over K8dd and just like that, instead of getting his bounty he knocked me out of the tourney. Not really sure why he called me with K8dd out of position when I only have 2 times pot left. That definitely can’t be a correct call but whatever. Ivey’s gonna Ivey.

Oh well. Hopefully next time I play with Ivey I actually win a hand against him!

The Calm Before The Storm

A summary of the WSOP Regional Championship Circuit event Adam “Roothlus” Levy played in Chicago. He finished 21st out of a field of 226 for around $ 22k, and is here to tell us the good, the bad and the ugly.