WSOP Event #27: Nazgul Has A Feel For Omaha

It’s a late beginning today for Nazgul; the Omaha Hi-Lo $5,000 event begins at 5pm instead of the usual 12pm, but the Brazilia room is already crowded with side-events and other satellites.
 
Starting with about 100 players around 5 o’clock, the Event #27 gains a lot of players during the first half hour, who sign up as late  registers,  to pass over a 190 players in total.

All the big names of poker are present : Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, Layne Flack,  Bruno Fitoussi, Mike Matusow, Erik Seidel, Mike Sexton, Florian "Morgoth" Langmann, Sunrider Sunar (lately arrived), Roland De Wolfe, etc. And even the multi-billionaire Mike Baxter, featured on GSN’s High Stakes Poker registered for the first time this year.

At Nazgul’s table, "there are two Omaha bracelet winners’", he tells us… As usual, Nazgul is focused, but he feels good, because he is comfortable playing Omaha, since he does it a lot online. The pace of the tournament is much different than yesterday’s Day 2 of the Shootout event: as player have 2 re-buy chips, they can gamble a lot at the beginning of the tournament with this triple-chance format. Nazgul plays only one hand, for 2k, during the first half-hour: on a board A-9-2, he calls the bet of his opponent, Turn is an A, Nazgul bets and he is called. On the river, a 7 comes off.

Nazgul checks, his opponent bets, Nazgul calls and shows low-full (999-AA) whereas the other player hit a runner-runner fullhouse (AAA-77), and scoops the pot, as there are no low.
But he quickly struggles back to his starting stack. His table is very hard to play as almost all the players are Hi-Low specialists, including last year’s bracelet winner, Dutch guy Rob Hollink and the Russian player who cashed 10 times in last year’s WSOP.

Nazgul has chipped up to 17k, with still one re-buy chip left. It’s a good result so far, as the starting stack was of 5K plus two re-buy chips.
French pro Fabrice Soulier just arrives at the table before the first break, on level 2. Last hand before the pause, Nazgul is on BB, one guy at the cut-off opens at 600 (blinds are 100-200), called by Fabrice Soulier on the button, SB folds, and Nazgul calls with AA46(two hearts). Flop comes K-2-3, with two hearts. Nazgul now has the nut flush draw, nut lo draw with aces and he bets out,  gets raised by the player on cut-off, reraised all-in for 3k by Soulier, r ad its e-raised all-in by Nazgul, and called by the cut-off for 15k. Cut-off guys shows KK2-x. Turn comes a J and tthe river is another 2. Both Soulier and Nazgul hit their flush, but button makes a full-house with KKK22, and scoops the pot.
Nazgul has only 1.5k left and one re-buy chip he uses immediately before going to take a deep breath outside.

Nazgul comes back from the pause in good spirit: "In Omaha Hi-Lo, you’ve got to take chances. If I had won this flip, I’d be with 36k and a clear chip leader. But nothing is finished in Omaha Hi-Lo. I can make my way back."

Then Daniel Alaei arrives at his table. The champion scoops many pots and is on rush, chopping most pots with Rob Hollink. Nazgul’s stack begins to slowly go down, and he goes all-in, 20 minutes before the dinner-break, in level 4, on blinds 200-400, with 3.5k left, with A-J-J-5 double suited, called by one player on the cut-off. He hits his A on the flop, but the cut-off player hits a runner-runner flush and no low. Nazgul is then out…

Tomorrow our team will be present in the Heads-Up Championship with Tobias aka Pokernoob and also with Trader, if his airplane for tomorrow isn't cancelled again. Allanon85 and Nazgul will play another $1,500 - Event #28.