Whereas past installments of the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) on ESPN have featured the “old guard of poker,” this week’s two-hour block highlighted one of the game’s young stars, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. The Bluefire Poker instructor took his seat at the feature table on Day 5 of the Main Event, which featured 574 players remaining and two former champs, Scotty Nguyen and Johnny Chan.
Galfond won a pot of 618,000 to become the chip leader in the first hand shown after flopping a set of fives. Then, the action panned out to the field, where Tony “Bond18” Dunst and Matt “mcmatto” Affleck, two of the chip leaders, were seated side-by-side. At Table 2, PokerStars pro Vanessa Selbst doubled up an opponent after her pocket kings could not hold up against pocket tens. Selbst lost 60% of her stack in the process.
Back at the feature table, Galfond hit a gutshot straight draw on the turn, leaving ESPN poker commentator Norman Chad to remark, “Galfond is running better than Forrest Gump.” Then, the young gun knocked out an opponent with A-K of diamonds against J-10. This time, Chad quipped, “A four-leaf clover would run bad against Phil Galfond today.”
Robert Mizrachi doubled up through recent PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) event winner Jason Mercier with pocket kings against pocket fives. Selbst then bit the dust after her A-2 could not hold up against an opponent’s K-J and Mercier followed her out the door by running A-10 into pocket aces. Mercier and Selbst each picked up $27,000.
Galfond held 1.9 million in chips, while the rest of his table held 2.1 million combined. Out in the field, November Niner Soi Nguyen doubled up with sixes-full to move to fourth in chips. Then, Scotty Nguyen dropped 40% of his stack after his pocket queens could not hold against an all-in player’s A-K. Poker pro Alex Jacob was ousted at the hands of Robert Mizrachi and Adam Schoenfeld also found the rail. Chad added, “They’ll have to point Adam Schoenfeld to the cashier. He’s only seen it in pictures.” Ouch. The cash marked Schoenfeld’s third in the money finish in a WSOP event.
To close out the first one-hour episode, Scotty Nguyen doubled up after flopping a set of sevens. Then, Donny Mizrachi became the second Mizrachi brother to fall by the wayside in the Main Event after Theo Jorgensen hit a straight on the river. Donny’s elimination meant that Michael Mizrachi and Robert Mizrachi were the last two family members standing.
Jonathan Duhamel doubled up an opponent to drop to less than 15 big blinds and was seemingly destined for the rail. However, he committed his chips with A-5 against A-10 all-in pre-flop and hit a five to move to 352,000. Then, Affleck became the first player in the Amazon Room to eclipse three million in chips after busting a player by making top pair, top kicker. Affleck was also the chip leader on Day 5 of the Main Event last year.
Juha Helppi sent Steve Sanders away, while former “Survivor: China” castaway Jean-Robert Bellande doubled up an opponent who hit two pair. Jorgensen sent two players packing in the same hand after flopping a pair of sixes with A-6 against J-6 and A-10. Jorgensen did a little jig in celebration, much to the delight of ESPN cameras. Remember, this is the same Jorgensen that knocked out Gus Hansen in a boxing match last year.
Scotty Nguyen lost half of his stack to James “croll103” Carroll after the latter called all-in on a board of 10-3-9-3 holding pocket tens for a boat. Nguyen tabled pocket jacks for two pair and a seven hit on the river. The Poker Hall of Fame nominee committed the rest of his chips pre-flop with A-J of spades, but ran into pocket kings to bust in 209th. Galfond, meanwhile, fell to less than one million in chips, but nevertheless survived the day thanks to his strong start.
In other late action during the second hour of WSOP on ESPN coverage, Robert Mizrachi doubled up with pocket kings and Peter Jetten continued his ascent up the leaderboard by knocking out a player with pocket queens. You can catch the 2010 WSOP Main Event unfold on ESPN every Tuesday at 9:00pm ET.