The Only Poker Blog
That Matters PokerJunkie.com

A lot of action is going on here tonight at the Rio. The $1,000 NL Holdem Event is heads-up between Steven Gee and Matthew Vance. The $1,500 NL Six-Handed Event is down to its final four players. The $5,000 NL is just about the bubble period. The $1,500 NL over in the Pavillion is still grinding away. Finally, the $10,000 2-7 Lowball World Championship is underway with another all-star field.

He Can Still Dodge Bullets Baby

Phil Hellmuth is still in the $5,000 NL Holdem event and is at the table directly in front of the media tower here. It has made for some very interesting commentary from Phil. For the most part he is quiet, but when he gets going, he gets going. The best bit came in a hand where he was facing a decision for all of his chips. He finally let it go and found out he was against aces, which set him on a classic tirade.

Yes, he can still dodge bullets, and is more than happy to tell you about it.

“Ya baby, I know it.” Hellmuth then ran around a bit. “I can still dodge em. That’s what I do!”

At this point the crowd starts gathering around and the other players around him in the event get a good laugh. Hellmuth later doubled up after catching lucky on the turn, and after his opponent mentioned that he got lucky. Hellmuth then went on a long speech:

“What do mean I got lucky? I’ve had queens, A-Q twice, A-K, A-J, pocket deuces, and I have had to let them all go. Now you tell me I got lucky. All I have one is one pot. One pot….”

His opponent as well as everyone else got a good laugh and Hellmuth and his opponent even shook hands. Hellmuth is still in the tournament and from the looks of things has somewhere around 45,000 in chips.

Let’s Play Some Lowball

The $10,000 2-7 Lowball World Championships kicked off tonight. As is the norm or almost World Series of Poker rules, an all-star field turned out for this event. The high buy-in events here at the WSOP outside of the Main Event almost resemble a glorified home game in the atmosphere. The fields are not huge and there is usually a lot of chatter and discussion about various topics from players. Day 1 in these events are a little more relaxed.

Freddy Deeb wanted to say hello to everyone at Poker Junkie:

Hello everyone.

Poor Vanessa, she looks like someone just took her puppy:

Why would you make Vanessa sad. Now she will just have to take your chips...

As I have mentioned before, twice this WSOP, I have stopped by to take Howard Lederer’s picture, only for him to bust that same hand. This time it would be hard for him to bust, since he didn’t have cards. His reaction in the photo is classic:

Ha, Ha! You can't bust me this time. I don't even have cards. Come back tomorrow. No...Wait!

Doyle decided to take his hat off for a while, and of course, I got a pic of him without his hat. His reaction tells the story:

Are you fucking serious? This is the photo you take?

Tomorrow, I am taking the day off. Melissa Castello will bring you the Day 14 updates as I am going to sleep in late and probably just chill out for the day. I will be back on Friday. Stay tuned to pokerjunkie.com as Melissa and I bring you updates from the 2010 World Series of Poker.