New Champ in WSOP

[Tasselfoot]

For a while it looked like Greg Raymer had a shot at repeating as WSOP champ. He was chip leader after day 3 and 5th overall in chips at the start of day 6 with only 27 players left. In front of him were two top pros, Mike "the mouth" Matusow and odds-on favorite Phil Ivey.

An extremely bad beat befell Raymer early on day 6, where he lost almost 4 million of his 5 million chips. He had KK and got his opponent all-in with just QJ. Needing some form of runner-runner on the turn-river, Aaron Kanter hits back to back hearts for a flush to cripple Raymer. He busted a few hands later with A9. He finished 25th.

Ivey wasn't far behind, going out in 20th.

Going into the final table and day 7, the only pro left was Matusow, sitting in 4th place with ~7 million chips. He took a huge hit early and wound up finishing 9th, ensuring an amateur would win the WSOP for the 4th straight year. Carlos Mortenson is the last pro to win, back in 2001 (Matusow made the final table that year also). Varkoni won in 2002, Moneymaker in 2003, and Raymer in 2004.

Say hello to Joseph Hachem, World Series of Poker champion for 2005, the final year any part of the tournament will ever be held at the Horseshoe.



Name: Joseph Hachem
Birthdate: 03.11.66
Birthplace: Lebanon
Current residence: Australia
Occupation: Professional poker player
Previous occupation: Chiropractor
Marital status: married
Number of children: 4
Other hobbies: Golf
Education: Bachelor's degree and post-graduate studes

[zajac]

...I'm speechless... I have no witty remarks for this... It's poker... :S

Uhhh... Woot!?

[XDDRCutieX]

Hmmm...Coolie. Lol. I'm not good at cards. -.-
~Rach~

[VxDx]

Originally Posted by Tasselfoot

...ensuring an amateur would win the WSOP for the 4th straight year...

Say hello to Joseph Hachem

Occupation: Professional poker player

???

[Specforces]

He has a good point.

[Tps222]

Amateurs are tearing it up, though, repeating it has been a bit hard, I remember last year when Moneymaker finished like 3rd out.

[HansSky]

I completely whored out the updates like, every 10 minutes I was on the PC. But I was pissed at the result...oh well.

[JurseyRider734]

Oh this was on TV, I was watching some of it last night.


If that was it. I was watching Poker on TV last night, though.

[aperson]

Originally Posted by Tps222

Amateurs are tearing it up, though, repeating it has been a bit hard, I remember last year when Moneymaker finished like 3rd out.

Moneymaker's not a very good player. I think he just got really lucky when he won.

[Tasselfoot]

1. As ap said, Moneymaker is not a good player... re-watch that 2003 Final Table... Moneymaker got Aces like 3 times, hit every god damn draw or 2-pair he played... the hand where he knocked out Phil Ivey in 10th is the perfect example. Had like 4-6 outs on the river and got lucky to suck out and knock out Ivey. Etc. The only play that was good was the HUGE bluff he pulled on Sam Farha when they were heads up. Sam calls that hand, he wins the tourney.

2. Greg Raymer IS a good player. The WSOP was NOT the 1st tournament he ever won, and he won an event at Foxwoods at some point this past year. He also cashed in another event at the WSOP besides the main event.

3. What I mean by professional vs amateur is this: Retards who quit their job within the past year to become "professional" players are NOT professionals. By professional I mean the guys who are regularly on the tournament scene, or at least on the cash scene, such as (but not limited to): Scotty Nguyen, Men Nguyen, Mihn Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Gordon, Phil Ivey, Phil Darden, Jennifer Harmen, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Ted Forrest, Chip Reese, Huck Seed, Dan Harrington, Daniel Negraneu, Antonio Esfaniari, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Layne Flack, Gus Hansen, Umberto Brenas, Toto Lionadis, Mike Sexton, Scott Fischman & the crew, the Hinden mob, Jason Lester, Marcel Luske, Eric Seidel, Chris Ferguson, etc etc etc... those were just the people I came up with in about 5 minutes. I'm sure I'm missing 20+.

[aperson]

Also, on another issue of Raymer. He's cashed in all 4 tournaments ever that have had more than 2000 people.

That should really tell you something.


I was rooting for Ivey the whole way :/

[HansSky]

I was really pushing for Raymer to pull up big again. He did pull up big, but not as big as I really wanted him to. After that, it was all Ivey or the three remaining PokerStars players. Oh well...there's always next year.


P.S. I think it's time for a pro to take the gold home next year.

[Telvanni_guard]

Originally Posted by Tasselfoot

Daniel Negraneu

Probably my favorite poker player, but I haven't seen him lately. Of course, I haven't watched too much WSOP lately. Any idea of the place he came in? As for Raymer, did he wear the glasses again?

[Tasselfoot]

Raymer wore the glasses. Raymer ALWAYS wears those glasses. They are his trademark, along with a fossil as a card protector.

Negraneu was recently at the final table of the LIVE FullTiltPoker tournament that took place at the Wynn casino the other night. Phil Ivey wasn't there, as he was still alive in the WSOP, but there were 23 pros in the field. Negranu finished... 4th or 5th. It was interesting to watch that final table, as it was 6 players playing live. Every hand was shown live, not just the edited-to-show-big-hands nonsense that ESPN does. It was on the other night on FSN (CSN for me, but FSN for most of the country).

Other than that, Daniel won 2 tournaments in the WPTs 3rd season and became the 4th person (I think) to win 2 WPT events. He also became the all-time money earner on the WPT, as he made a 3rd final table during season 3.

[banditcom]

I like playing cards with naked women on them.

[Tasselfoot]

I have 2 decks of those.

We used them one night... and they were hard to play with. Not because of the boobs, but because the cards are smaller than normal ones, and it was very difficult to see what cards you were holding.

[blahblah18]

14 hours is pretty grueling with that much pressure, well played. I shall be attending next year, you can all wish me luck.

[blahblah18]

also, varkonyi and moneymaker are donkeys, Raymer's the real deal, go watch him at foxwoods too at some point, he knows what he's doing