WSOP Event #57: Trader, Nazgul And PokerNoob On Day 2A

All of Team PokerStrategy.com's players managed to make it through their starting days, all with healthy looking stack sizes. Today on Day 2A, Trader, Nazgul and PokerNoob all started the day, ready for some action. Allanon who is also still in, will start on Day 2B. After the second day the field should be down to about 2,500 players, that will all start on Day 3 at once.

Other PokerStrategy.com members that were also still in the tournament and started today were: Ben benjo Thavisin, Peter peterbee Buermann, Felix lawdoc Osterland, Johannes psier Strassman, Gianmarco eupremio Pala and Benny psychobenny Spindler. The last one was looking really short, and started the day with a little less than 8,000 in chips.

At the end of the day, some of the PokerStrategists were still standing. peterbee continued his great run on Day 2A and increased his chip stack up to a nice 145,700, while eupremio also did quite well, ending the day with 103,500 chips. lawdoc will be joining them on Day 3, as he managed to survive this tournament day with 67,400 chips.

However, other of our members did not have the same fate and were sent to the rail on Day 2A. Amongst them we can mention benjo, psychobenny, who unfortunately did not manage to last long enough so they can take part in the Day 3 action.

When the blinds reached 500-1,000, a hand came along where the button min-raised while Nazgul (pictured left) was in the big blind. He re-raised to 7,000 and the button called him.

The flop came and Nazgul who was holding picked up an open-ended straight draw. He decided to lead out for 8,300 and the button called him again.

The turn was a and Nazgul fired out 15,300. The button quickly released his hand and Nazgul managed to win a decent sized pot on a semi-bluff.

However, his opponents also know how to bluff. Nazgul called against a player who was playing many hands. The flop came and Nazgul checked, the loose player made a continuation bet of 4,000 and Nazgul made the call.

The turn brought a and Nazgul checked it. His opponent bet out 14,400 and again Nazgul decided to flat call. The river brought a and after Nazgul's check, his opponent went all-in for 48,000. This put Nazgul on a tough decision and he went into tanking mode for about five minutes. After long deliberation he laid down his hand and got shown 9-4o.

A monster pot soon came Nazgul's way though, when he over-limped with pocket fours and the flop came down . Nazgul lead out into the pot for 3,000 from the cut-off. The button re-raised him to 7,500 and the big blind flat called it. Nazgul bumped it up once more - this time to 22,300 - and the button was forced to fold after all this violence.

The BB went all-in for a total of 46,000 and Nazgul had an easy call to make. BB showed for a gut shot and flush draw. Lucky for our player, the set of fours held and Nazgul won a monster pot and he was up to 170,000 in chips total.

He lost one hand right before the end of the day with A-K vs A-Q and that made him finish the day with an exact amount of 155,700 in chips. With the average at about 90,000 this is a very solid stack to take into day 3.

Trader (pictured right) started the second day with the biggest stack of all, about 77,000. He quickly seemed to go on a real roller-coaster as we have seen from him before. His aggressive play puts the table under pressure and makes it so that many big pots are being played.

Trader took a hit to his stack very quickly. He was moved to another table and a player limp raised him from the cut-off when he raised with pocket tens. He goes over the top, but as it turns out, the cut-off had a pair of aces. No help for Trader on any street and he was down to about 50k.

Then a lot of pots were played without showdown and slowly but steadily, Trader chipped up to 70,000 again. Then in three hands that followed each other quickly he was even over 200,000 in chips. First he caught two bluffs with K-T on a J-J-T-6-7 board and J-7 on a A-J-7-4-5 that also had three spades on it.

The last big hand was against John Duthie, the creator of the EPTs. Trader raised from MP3 and John Duthie called in the big blind. The flop came and Trader made a continuation bet that got called. The turn was a and the action went identical to the one on the flop. The river was an and completed the Trader's flush draw. After some thinking and contemplating, Trader decided to make a small bet, about one thirds of the pot and John Duthie check-raised him about pot-size. Trader instantly made the call and John Duthie threw his hand in the muck.

Trader ended the day with 136,000 in chips though. He lost the classic flip with A-K vs Q-Q pre-flop all-in for a 140,000 pot and right before the end of the day he lost a big hand with Q-Q against A-T.

Not everyone from Team PokerStrategy.com was having a great day though. Early on it did seem to go very well for PokerNoob (pictured left)., who was scooping pots and chipping up left and right to the point where he nearly doubled his stack.  But then doom struck first when PokerNoob managed to get all his chips in good on a low board with aces vs pocket eights, only to see another eight appear on the turn.

Not beaten yet, PokerNoob managed to hang in there and fight his way back up to a healthy stack. Then he opened with from the button and the big blind made the call. Flop was a lovely one for him, .

The big blind lead into PokerNoob and he decided to just call. The turn brought a and again the big blind fired a big bet into the pot that was smooth called by PokerNoob. Then on the river the hit the table and the big blind pushed all in, PokerNoob was unfortunately forced to fold his hand.

A couple of hands later PokerNoob picked up pocket eights on the cut-off and made a standard raise. The button 3-bet him again and he decided to go all-in over the top, only to get snap called by pocket aces. Without further help, PokerNoob was forced to leave the table.

remmetje has once again created an audio interview with Team PokerStrategy.com manager RobbieV, in which they discuss about the team's performance so far at the WSOP Main Event. To listen to the interview, simply click here.

All in all, Day 2A is over, with 630 out of a total of 1,476 players surviving the play day. Eric Cloutier managed to finish this day as chip leader, having a stack of 384,000 chips. However, as always, some notable names didn't make it. Amongst the Day 2A casualties, we had the likes of Mike Matusow, Gavin
Smith, Barry
Greenstein, Tony G, Amarillo Slim Preston, Phil Laak, Sandra Naujoks and Jennifer Tilly.

Day 2B will kick off with a field almost twice the size of the one we saw on Day 2A and Allanon will be playing there. Best of luck to him!

Here are the top 10 chip stacks after Day 2A:

World Series Of Poker Main Event Day 2A Standings
Rank	Name	Chips
1st	Eric Cloutier	384,000
2nd	Ed Perry	370,000
3rd	Brandon Demes	369,800
4th	Jamie Brown	360,000
5th	Kyle Wilson	335,000
6th	Samer Rahman	314,000
7th	Greg Mueller	311,000
8th	Andrew Gaw	305,000
9th	Mike Bisutti	290,000
10th	Rick Darabino	290,000