I think I’ll bid on this item, since I didn’t get my personally autographed copy during the PokerBowl as promised. Speaking of, here is a great article by Dallas Roughneck, T.J. Cloutier, on the unfortunate demise of my team.
THACKERVILLE, Okla.–Still anybody’s game in the WinStar tourney. Though in the parking lot, the Okies seem to be mounting a comeback. Our unscientific license-plate spot-check today:
Texas – 184
Oklahoma – 14
Pennsylvania – 1
South Dakota – 1
Kansas – 1
Missouri – 1
Mexico D.F. – 1
LAS VEGAS–Here’s Tiffany Michelle’s bustout interview with John Armbrust from Austin, where he gives a shout out to Austin Pete’s friend … and seems to be a pretty nice guy — a teacher who loves his kids — non-Dario RaiNKhaNish at all.
WSOP: Great way to spend your summer vacation.
LAS VEGAS–With the Scandis dropping like flies, a couple “unknown” Texans have stuck around to show their super-high-stakes hold’em prowess.
Click here to follow the weekend action as we work our way down to the all-important final table.
Currently, Ray Henson from Houston (left) is the chip leader — with 10.965 million chips third in chips with more than 10 million. He’s playing on the ESPN feature table, where previous main-event champ Scotty Nguyen seems to be the key camera draw.
This is different from the Bluff feature table, where John Armbrust from Austin (right) also has about 10 million in chips. Lee Watkinson, the new chip leader (14 million), is at his table, along with Accused Internet Robot “RaiNKhan.” Yesterday RaiNKhan, perhaps trying to show that he is indeed descended from monkeys, climbed up the ESPN scaffolding to celebrate a victorious hand. Yeow. Click here to see a video of some RaiNKhan celebrations in action.
Armbrust, by the way, is related by multiple marriages and maybe a little blood to the Fresh Princess. And Austin Pete Blackberry’s in to inform us:
If Pokerati is looking to endorse anyone-John Ambrust is the proverbial “friend of a friend.”. Difference here, is that my friend has a 200 dollar one percent interest in Amburst. At a minimum that interest would worth 2.5k. Amburst was shortstacked sitting 49th out of the last 60 with 700k before going on a nice run. Her now sits 17th out of 37. I also checked the almanac, and if Amburst wins the main event, it would be the first time a main event champion and the Pokerati Invitational were won by players haling from the same city. Go Austin Poker!
CCExplore also has some great stuff about Armbrust here, and here.
UPDATE: And just like that, Armbrust is out. Damn, thought he was gonna win it.
LAS VEGAS–Oops, we had our number in the hedline wrong. Turns out poker peeps from Texas were even more dominating than we thought — with nine Here are the Texans who made it to Day 5, with either their current chip count or their cash prize already collected:
Ray Henson — Houston — 6,200,000 (chip leader)
Ayaz Mahmood — Houston — 1,600,000
John Armbrust — Austin — 780,000
Senovio Ramirez III — Mercedes — 770,000
Leonard Pruzansky — Richmond — 75th — $106,382
Josh Evans — Plano — 76th — $106,382
Mark Ellerbe — Richmond — 84th — $82,476
Jared Hamby — Waco — 88th — $82,476
Michael Zinna — San Antonio — 93rd –$67,535
Go Ray Henson! You’re the best! Woooo!
UPDATE: As of dinner break, Henson has dropped to 6th chip position, with 4 million.
LAS VEGAS–Throughout history, the WSOP has been dominated by Texans and Jews. At least one side is doing its part to keep that up this year, as eight Texans made it through to Day 5. One guy who probably didn’t get the coverage he deserved is Jared Hamby, known both live and online as “The Waco Kid.” Like Josh Evans, he too happens to be a Jackie’s alum. (Funny to me how reminisces of Jackie’s sound the same as non-Texan reminisces of PartyPoker. Ahh, yes, the good-old-days [of 2006] … )
Anyhow, mad props to Hamby, who finished in 88th place, winning $82,476.
Here’s the thing about poker in Texas at present — it’s difficult to think big. Think too big, put together something too cool, and someone will try to put a stop to it. It’s a real shame, too … because as a society, we might be better off trying to finance schools or focussing on keeping the terrorists away. But alas, such is not reality … and the latest victim of (misguided?) anti-poker sentiment is True Texas Poker with TJ Cloutier.
So say event organizers, who have further delayed/restructured their made-for-TV spectacle. I tend to believe them, too, because for the past year they have almost constantly had to be shifting gears to appease anti-poker powers. Here’s the latest on the status of their tourney(s). Considering that no one has had to pay a dime to win a seat, all is probably well. Not sure how his sponsors feel, but regardless, Karridy/TJ looks to have moved to a poker-entertaining Plan B C D … and he’s still got a long way to go before running out of letters.
Thanks, PokerDonkey, for the tip!
