All Mucked Up: 2012 World Series of Poker Day 9 Live Blog

June 05, 2012

Are there any celebrities playing in a World Series of Poker event? What are the crazy prop bets being made, and who's making them? We aim to answer all that and more in All Mucked Up. It's a live blog of all the stuff you want to know besides hand histories and bad beats. Well, we might add a few in here, everyone loves a good bad beat story — unless it happened to you.

Stacked Field For Event #12: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em

Looks like we're going to have a stacked field for the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em event today. So far we've seen Jason Mercier, Justin Bonomo, Issac Haxton, Betrand 'ElKy' Grospellier, Doc Sands, Eric Froehlich, Victor Ramdin, Peter Jetten and many more.

Also supposedly in the house is Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom. A face we haven't seen yet at the World Series of Poker.

Since the field is so stacked we talked to pros to see who they wouldn't want to play in the first round of heads-up matches.

Tom Marchese said he wouldn't want to playPhil Hellmuth. "It wouldn't be that fun," Marchese said. "I wouldn't be able to get my pocket 10's all-in on the first hand."

We talked to last year's $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Holdd'em Bracelet Winner Jake Cody. "I wouldn't want to play Matt Perrins," Cody said. "He knows all my tells. He just knows how I play too well."

Jason Koon was also in the field today getting ready for a match. "I wouldn't want to play someone I don't want to look at for too long," Koon said.

"Don't worry, it won't be too long," Sam Trickett joked.

"Sam Trickett," Koon replied as his answer to our question.

Andrew Robl and Peter Jetten were standing on the rail waiting to be drawn for a match.

"I wouldn't want to play Peter," Andrew said. "He's good, scary, and he knows all my tells."

"I'm going to be unoriginal and say Andrew," Peter answered. "He's a gangster and just doesn't care about money. I fear people like that."

Randy 'Nanonoko' Lew is the last player we spoke to this morning.

"I wouldn't want to play Isildur," Lew said. "He's really good at cash games. It's scary. I think this is a tournament structure that he can adjust well too."

Be sure to keep an eye out on the live reporting blog so you can see all the excitement from today's tournament.

Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom

Viktor Blom is in the Rio today for theEvent #12: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em. His first opponent in the tournament is recent bracelet winner Andy Bloch. We'll be sure to keep an eye on his progress throughout the day.

World Champion Sweat

How does it feel to have an Olympic world champion swimmer sweat you? Just ask Josh Birkis and Jeff Gross. Check out these tweets from Michael Phelps:

Poll of the Day

Fashion Faux Pas

We couldn't decide what was worse, Giorgio Medici's paisley shirt or Viktor Blom's sagging pants.

Epic Scooter Races

We reported Saturdaythat Liv Boeree had broken her ankle at her party on Friday night. We'll there's been some interesting new developments, including a scooter and Doyle Brunson. Check it out:

To which Doyle responded:

If the Mario Kart style scooter match actually does take place, we'll be sure to get Liv and Doyle some banana peels, green shells, and mushrooms.

What To Do? What To Do?

With the players in Event #12: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em on break, we caught up with a couple of them to see how they are going to spend time until their next match.

"I'm would usually go home," said Eric Froehlich who just beat Ronald Crabtree to move on to the next round. "I only live three blocks away, but I really don't want to deal with two valets right now with just 40 minutes left. So instead of that i'm just gonna go watch Scott Seiver ship this tournament." Earlier in the day Froehlich came up with an interesting suggestion for the World Series of Poker onhow to deals with byes and play-in matches. You can see that and all the hands and play from the day on the live reporting blog.

We also caught up with Erik Seidel earlier who had a bye in the first round and we wanted to see how he was going to spend the extra time between his matches.

"I think I'm gonna go see a movie actually," Seidel said. We thought he was kidding so we asked if he was serious. "No, I'm really gonna go see a movie."

Nanonoko: The Kobayashi of the Poker World

Apparently Randy 'Nanonoko' Lew had some kind competitive eating contest last night. We caught up with Lew on break from the $10,000 heads-up to hear more about it.

Here's the aftermath via twitter:

The Late Starters

We spoke to Andrew ‘LuckyChewy’ Lichtenberger right before he began Event #12 $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em.

“I got a by in the first round which is nice. I have Markus Gonsalves right now, but I don’t care who I see at the final table. Maybe there are some players whose games I know well, but I just don’t think about that kind of stuff right before I play. Obviously I hope they’re not tough, but I’ll just play whoever I play”

We also got Chewy’s reaction to the aforementioned music in the hallway.

“Yeah I’ve heard it, it drives me nuts. I wish they wouldn’t play that type of crappy, pop music here or in restaurants or wherever I go. The songs repeat so often”.

We also bumped into Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier, arriving right on the hour for his first Heads Up match of the day to find out who he wouldn’t want to meet at the final table.

“This is the toughest tournament yet; almost every player is a great player. I think Victor Blom would be tough to come up against because he’s good heads-up. I think Isaac Haxton is strong heads-up too. There are no easy opponents”

On The Rail of Event #12

We snapped a couple photos of the rail of Event #12: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em. There's hundreds of railbirds out there right now.

Jean-Robert Bellande Will Play One Drop

For the past few days we've been following Jean-Robert Bellandes tweets hinting that he would be playing in the One Drop $1 Million Buy-In event. Well today he confirmed it via twitter:

Now the only question is, how did BrokeLivingJRB get a million bucks?

Squeak and the Funny Hat
We caught our second funny hat of the series today:

We asked the man for his name. "You'll have to figure that out for yourself," the man replied.

But Jonathan Aguiar who was also at the table kindly told us just to call the man "Squeak." We'll be sure to let you know if we see any more funny hats in the coming days.

Who Wore It Better: Spaceman Edition

These players went to drastic lengths to cut down on giving off any tells during Event #12 $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em.

Where is Hellmuth?

Many people were wondering where Phil Hellmuth was for today's Event #12: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em as he wasn't registered in any other tournaments, and wasn't tweeting any reason he wouldn't have played it. Well about an hour ago via twitter we finally found out where Hellmuth was:

Moral of the story, don't play poker all night the day before a tournament.

The Post-River Game

With round 3 of Event #12 $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em fast approaching, we met up with some pro’s to find out what they do in their off time during the World Series of Poker.

First pro that we met was Justin Bonomo, wandering through the Amazon room, checking out the Limit event.

“I’m trying to decide whether to double dip today and playing this Limit event. It’s going to run for a few days so I’m weighing up my options”. Justin told us.

Justin is somewhat unimpressed when the writer informs him he has 3% of a horse in the $1500 Limit event.

“That’s cool man” He say’s, politely.

Changing the subject, we ask Justin what he does on his down time during the series.

“I don’t love nightclubs, I’m not into that scene. I love to eat, I’m into restaurants and good food. My favorite place is Picassos in the Bellagio”

We asked Justin what four poker players he would bring out for dinner and why.

“I have to go with my best friends on this one. I would take out Isaac Haxton, Scott Seiver and Steve O’Dwyer. I can’t decide who else to bring, I think someone’s going to be pissed if I leave them out”.

“Last meal that I had with poker players was a home cooked meal actually, I ate with Brian Roberts, Emil Patel and some other close friends. We cooked fish.”

On his return to the Rio for his next Heads Up match, Antonio Esfandiari told us about his favorite club in Vegas, and who he would bring if he booked a table for just four people.

“My favorite club is Marquee at Cosmopolitan” Antonio began. “As for people, I would bring Phil Laak”.

No surprises there, Antonio and Phil’s friendship is well documented both at and away from the table.

“I would bring Brian Rast,Jeff Gross and… Probably John Tabatabai. You know who he is right?”.

You Always Know the First Timers

Check out this funny tweet Shaun Deeb made while playing Event #13 $1500 Limit Hold'em.

Who wore it better?

We spotted Bryan Devonshire and two other players sporting similar hats.

Who is Isildur1?

Ok, so we know who Isildur1 is by now. Last year, PokerStars signed young Swedish pro ‘Victor Blom’, who had long been assumed to be the No-Limit and PLO phenom that regularly beat up the biggest online games. But does anyone actually know the real Isildur1? Does anyone really know anything about him?

We tried to catch up with Victor right before he sat down for round 2 of Event #12 $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em. He was talking to some friends outside the Brazilia room when we walked up and asked him if we could have a short interview. He seemed unsteady for a moment as he planned his sentence in English before politely informing us “I don’t do interviews”.

The talk on the rail is that Victor has been refusing interviews at PokerStar’s request. They probably understand that nothing has changed since 2009, and Isildur’s biggest marketing tool is his mystery and peoples sense of awe in his presence.

After he busted out of Event #12 there was a drastic decline in railbird activity in the Rio.

Blom’s World Series of Poker debut made for one of the most exciting days of the series yet, and we hope he’s back sooner rather than later.

Jared Bleznick’s Heads Up Challenge updated.

For those of you who don’t know, the PLO Heads Up specialist issued a challenge to this year’s bracelet winners.

We passed by Andy Bloch’s $1,500 Limit Hold’em table to ask if he would take up Bleznick on his challenge. Bloch is just coming off his first bracelet win in Seven Card Stud.

“I think I’d do it, Bloch said. “For how much?”

Bleznick hasn’t said what stakes he’d wants to play for, but we’ll be on the lookout for Jared to get an answer.

Just Two Tables For Nanonoko

We saw this tweet from Randy ‘Nanonoko’ Lew while he was playing Event #13 $1500 Limit Hold'em. Unsurprising, that the world’s most famous multi tabler isn’t able to stay busy playing just the one game at a time.

Vanessa Rousso's Full House

We’ve been reporting on the goings on in PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso’s new house here in Vegas. Maria Ho and fellow PokerStars pros Vanessa Selbst and Liv Boeree are staying there as well for the duration of the WSOP. Check out PokerNews’ own Lynn Gilmartin’s tour of the new pad (Warning: Girls in Bikinis).

Check out Tiffany Michelle's tweet of the girls spinning the wheels of steel.

Elvis Is In The Building

We ran into Elvis in the Rio Pavilion. Elvis the dealer—that is (his name tag reads Elvis as well). We asked him what’s been the biggest cash game he’s dealt since the start of the WSOP.

“Action Jackson. He completed a 24hr session and was up around $1million.”

We didn’t recognize the name and asked for more details.

“He’s the guy with the cigar,” said Elvis. “They were playing Pot-Limit Omaha. He took them all down. He was running real good.”

The cigar description immediately made us think of the white haired “mystery man” that we be spotted playing nosebleed stakes ($500-$1000 PLO) against Patrick Antonius , Andrew Robl, and Ashton Griffin.

We can’t say for certain it’s the same person, but according to Elvis, it’s the same guy.

Monnette Ships A Bracelet

We caught up with John Monnette for a quick chat, shortly after his win in Event #10 $5,000 Seven Card Stud.

Any plans to celebrate?

I’m not sure, probably gonna take it easy tonight.

Are you aware of Jared Bleznick’s challenge?

He really tweeted that? He won’t play me heads up. We know each other from online. He’s so arrogant (said jokingly).

If you could pick one song to be played at your bracelet ceremony, what would it be?

Oh man, that’s a good question. Probably something stupid...like “Know when to fold’em." (Kenny Rogers: The Gambler)

How does it feel to win when PokerStars pro Jason Mercier has you on his Poker Fantasy Draft?

I texted Jason last night and told him as long as he’s rooting for me I know I got a good chance to win.

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