2010 NAPT Venetian Main Event Day 1 | 2010 NAPT Venetian

Level: 7

Blinds: 300/600

Ante: 75

02-20-2010 15:04 UTC-12

Bring On Level 7

[user75032]

Cards are back in the air.

02-20-2010 15:18 UTC-12

The final numbers are in and a whopping 872 players put up the $5,000 buy-in for the PokerStars.net NAPT Venetian Main Event, creating a prizepool worth over $4 million! The cap was set at 890 players and was nearly reached. First place will receive $827,648 with the rest of the final table being paid out as follows.

1st - $827,648
2nd - $522,306
3rd - $309,366
4th - $241,064
5th - $184,816
6th - $144,639
7th - $104,461
8th - $60,266

A min-cash will net you $7,232 and 128 places will receive a payout.

02-20-2010 15:29 UTC-12

The Poker Brat and the Poker Kat

[user75032]

Sometimes watching poker is a real thing of beauty. We came to Kathy Liebert and Phil Hellmuth's table in time to see the Poker Brat make a late position re-raise to 4,000. The original raiser, seated in early position, was the only caller.

Both players checked a flop of {6-Diamonds}

, with Hellmuth donning his trademark sunglasses after the flop was already out. On the {7-Hearts}

turn, Hellmuth's opponent tried a lead of 6,000. Hellmuth double-checked his cards and then called.

The river was the {K-Diamonds}

. Hellmuth's opponents hands got very antsy, suddenly shuffling chips and cards as if he couldn't decide whether or not to bet. He finally checked and Hellmuth checked behind quickly.

"I just have nines," Hellmuth's opponent said, ready to muck his hand. After all, what hand could 9s possibly beat on that board?

"Nines?" Hellmuth replied. "They're good. Nice hand." His opponent opened {9-Hearts}

to collect the pot.

Hellmuth, true to form when he's being beaten out of a pot, started muttering about what a "big hand" a pair of nines is. Liebert then piped up that Hellmuth really isn't supposed to have a hand there that can't beat a pair of nines.

"Even if you bluff-raised you probably can beat nines there," she said. "There's really only one hand that you can have."

"Well, if I raise with something like ace-queen of hearts or ace-jack of hearts..." said Hellmuth, his voice trailing off.

Hellmuth retains 25,000 of his starting 30,000-chip stack.

Tags: Kathy Liebert Phil Hellmuth

02-20-2010 15:36 UTC-12

Phillips and Hinkle Battling

donpeters

On the board of {K-Diamonds}

, Carter Phillips checked to Blair Hinkle. He bet 3,300 and Phillips made the call.

The final card on board was the {8-Spades}

, completing a possible flush draw. Phillips checked again over to Hinkle. He fired 9,000 and then Phillips tank-folded his hand.

Phillips lost a few thousand chips on the hand, but still has about 77,000 in his stack. Hinkle moved up to 70,000 with that pot. These two have been battling back and forth since Hinkle was moved to Phillips' table.

Tags: Blair Hinkle Carter Phillips

02-20-2010 15:39 UTC-12

Buchanan Chips Up

donpeters

Shawn Buchanan raised from middle position to 1,400. Greg Raymer just three-bet Buchanan's preflop the hand prior to this one to win the pot, but this time he just flat-called. The small blind called and then Maria Ho was in the big blind and called as well.

The four players took a flop of {10-Diamonds}

and the two blinds checked to Buchanan. He fired 2,000 and Raymer folded. The small blind and Ho also folded, allowing Buchanan to chip up to 40,000.

Tags: "Fossilman"Greg Raymer Maria Ho Shawn Buchanan

02-20-2010 15:49 UTC-12

Exeunt, Caesar

[user75032]

As we were wandering through the back portion of the poker room, a colleague asked if Phil Hellmuth busted. We turned to his table and saw Danny Wong sitting in his seat. Naturally, this drew our curiosity.

According to Kathy Liebert, "Caesar" did indeed meet his untimely demise. "Phil had queens. He put Eric [Levesque] on aces. So he called," said Leibert. She added that Hellmuth called Daniel Negreanu over to the table before calling to tell Daniel, "I used to be able to make a good fold in this spot."

All of the chips went in on a ten-high flop. Hellmuth's pocket queens did not improve against Levesque's pocket aces. Once the river was down, the Poker Brat beat a hasty retreat out of the room.

Perhaps somewhat charitably (although with Hellmuth long departed it didn't matter much), Leibert told Levesque, "I would have called you with queens in that spot as well. Especially if I were him."

Tags: Eric Levesque Kathy Lieber Phil Hellmuth

02-20-2010 16:02 UTC-12

Timoshenko Takes One from Akat

[user140525]

We caught up with Adam "akat11" Katz and Yevgeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko staring at a board that read {A-Hearts}

with about 15,000 in the pot. Eventually both checked to see the river: {3-Hearts}

.

Katz checked, and Timoshenko bet 6,600. Katz took his time, eventually tossing in a call. He looked disgusted with himself when Timoshenko turned up {A-Clubs}