Des Wilson says...

Des' WSOP Report 2008 (22)

July 9th

The headlines:

• One player has huge lead
• Team Ladbrokes returns in strength today (Wednesday)

One unranked and virtually unknown player, Brian Scheadlich, has built up such a huge lead at the end of Day 2-A in the main event that he is going to take some catching. He has 801,000 chips, no less than 404,000 ahead of his nearest rival.

About 450 survived this day. Erik Seidel with 101,200 is one of the few big names to be anywhere near the top (and becomes the top WSOP player of the year) ...others who one has heard of include Thor Hansen 117,100, Cheu Giang 141,100, and – would you believe? – the Australian cricket star Shane Warne on 100,100.

Day 2-B comes today (Wednesday) and then the field merges into one for Day 3.

Of the 118 Ladbroke entries, no less than 80 survived Day One and all but one play Day 2-B today. These include two with over 100,000 chips, John ‘Berga’ Berg from Sweden and Eetu ‘Peteth’ Vehvilainin from Finland.

Two Ladbrokes women players to watch are Katherine ‘minimilk’ Hartree and Louise ‘emotivator’ Duffy. Roy the Boy Brindley never played on Day One (see details below) but Jeff ‘Jaffacake’ Kimber is through to today as are Paul ‘Action jack’ Jackson, Morten ‘PokerGirl1’ Erlandsen, and Gary ‘ragstoriches’ Clarke.

Many big US names went out on Day 2-A, including Barry Greenstien, Erick Lindgren, Billy Baxter, Kathy Leibert, Paul Wasicka, and Scotty Ngyuen.

Quite a few British players are hanging on in there, including Keith Hawkins on 224,100, Ben Roberts on 134,100, Iwan Jones on 115,200, John Duthie on 58,800, Dave Colclough on 114,000 and Northern Ireland’s Marty Smythe on 60,175.

Out go Neil Channing (who cashed seven times in the World Series), Victoria Coren, Joe Beevers, John Shipley and Harry Demetrious.

From the Ladbrokes Lounge

Trevor "bigTR" Reardon on 54,500 chips, is the last Ladbrokes player remaining in this years tournament.

Another amazing Roy ‘The Boy’ Brindley World Series story.

Two years back the immigration authorities would not let him out of Ireland.

This year he was just about to play the main event when he heard his wife was about to have their second child. He cancelled playing and raced to the airport only to have his flight cancelled.

Back to the hotel, then back to the airport the next day, only to have to fly via LA and miss his connection.

Took him 3 days to get back to Dublin where he was met at the airport by someone with a picture of the baby.

So he missed both the birth and the main event; truly the World Series has not been kind to Roy.

In the meantime, the Ladbroke lounge is bustling. While two rival on-line sites closed their lounges on the off-day Monday, there were 80 Ladbrokes players taking part in a lively team game in the Ladbrokes lounge.

Nigel Blower was regaling those around him with details of a dinner he was asked to in a private room at the Wynn; they had gold-plated chopsticks!

Quotes from those who got through Day One:

Katherine Hartree

‘I had a good start on the first level, second level first hand I raised with K-Q before the button, the big blind called, it came down J-high, he checked and I raised, and I raised again on the turn and quite big on the river. He thought about it and called and I hadn’t hit and he had second pair. Down to 15,000. Had a quiet few hours, then had a good last couple of hours. The hand I thought I played well I lost chips on but got away cheaply and the hand I played badly I made money from. Came out with over 43,000.’

Steve Davis (53,000)

‘I had an Omaha moment early on when I got into a panic with nut flush draw and a gut-shot straight draw as well. Went all-in for 18,000 with guy with bottom set and he agonised and called, and fortunately I hit the flush and doubled up. Had a great moment when a guy tried to slow play me with trips and I made my set on the river, and then I hit trips against top two pair – those three hands basically got me to 53,000. Otherwise it was a day of folding – just sitting there being patient. It’s so true what they say – hours of boredom and moments of sheer terror.’

Des Wilson’s Diary

If only I had played in the main event like I played in the Caesars Palace deep stack event on Monday – 25,000 chips. I played so well and patiently. Twice I suffered setbacks, one a crushing one, and each time I fought back and was doing really well on the 9th level, after 11 hours, when I was hit for a third time – this time fatally. One guy opened for 6000, one guy called and I called with AQ from the button. Then the big blind went all-in for about 40,000 so to call him would involve a 100,000 pot. He had been steaming from a bad beat and I thought he may have a weaker hand than an all-in justified. Also I was getting reasonable odds and was ready to put my stack at risk to make a huge leap if I won the hand. So I called. He turned over JJ. I then got a Q on the flop and was on top. BUT one of his Jacks was a diamond and he proceeded to get a board with FIVE diamonds so I lost to a flush he was never playing for when he went all-in. I was so pleased with my form and control of the game throughout and enjoyed the table so much that I really didn’t mind at all. If I had played like this in the main event I would have worked into the 2nd day.

Came down to earth with a poor cash game performance yesterday however.

Still, you can’t win ‘em all ...though it would be good to win one!

Des Wilson, Ladbrokes' Poker Ambassador