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The dealers aren't used to spreading Stud games, collecting antes etc., but they're professional and pick it up fast. Plus there's guaranteed to be one American at least per table quite happy to give direction...
2008 World Series of Poker Europe
Event 2 - £2,500 H.O.R.S.E.
Day: 1
Event Info
2008 World Series of Poker Europe
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
Buy-in
£2,500
Prize Pool
£275,000
Total Entries
110
Level
20
Blinds
0 / 0
Ante
0
Players Left 1 / 110
Filter
The dealers aren't used to spreading Stud games, collecting antes etc., but they're professional and pick it up fast. Plus there's guaranteed to be one American at least per table quite happy to give direction...
Mike, "What game are we playing?...Stud Eight? Oh, I better concentrate then."
On sixth street John Phan bets his
board and Chris Ferguson raises showing 
, Phan makes the call before betting seventh street. Ferguson just calls this time and Phan asks, "Have you got it?" Ferguson then flips over the
for trip threes. Phan flips over the 
, "It was the only reason I bet the river!" before he reveals 
for buried aces that are now no good.
"Nothing's happened yet," helpfully informs British table-chatter Stephen Pearce, "We're all on our starting stacks." Just as he says this, however, he gets into a pot with Gary Jones, which brings him a few hundred over his original 10,000.
Jones completed showing the
, Pearce raised to 200 with the 
. Pearce bet all the remaining streets, too, including when Jones checked when they showed:Pearce:
Jones:
He received a call of his 200 on the river too, and sort of shuffled his three hidden cards in a way which wasn't too delighted, but it turns out that with
down his pair of Jacks was actually good.
Jeff Madsen, having bet fourth street and received three callers, bets fifth street showing
, his opponents, including Jan Sjavik, who have 
, 
and 
all quickly fold as Madsen flips 
to show how far ahead he was already.
An interesting hand developed between Andy Bloch and two other players developed. All three had strong looking boards on fifth street with Bloch showing
and his opponents holding 
and 
respectively. The first of these two players led out on fifth with Bloch and the other player both calling. On 6th street Bloch bet and again both the others called. Finally, having received their last card, Bloch checked, as did the player showing A-5-7-J with the final player firing out a bet of 200. Bloch made the call and the third player mucked. Bloch showed 8-6-5-3-A which was good enough for the pot as his opponent could only manage T-6-4-2-A.
Watching about 15 minutes' worth of Razz hands, on all four tables in my section, and there were no showdowns at the river where a pot of any interesting size at all was decided. It's more like, "When will one player stop calling another player who bets all the time," and a hand showing strength straight away tends to keep betting until such folding occurs. Examples:
Barry Greenstein gets an
, completes, gets two callers with an and respectively. They then get the lovely and 
while Greenstein picks up the - that's the end of that one.Jan Lundberg shows the
, and makes it the full 100 - he gets two callers. All three players check fourth street until the boards look like:Lundberg:
Woody Deck:
Third Player:
Now a bet from Lundberg (200) gets rid of Woody, and his final opposition crumbles to a fold on the river which brought Lundberg a
and his opponent a 
. The thirst to see some hole cards is yet to be quenched.
Jeff Madsen, showing a board of
called his opponent's bet on fifth street. His opponent who had 
picked up the on sixth street and bet 200. Madsen picked up the 
and raised to 400 and was called. On seventh street, it was checked to Madsen who fired a 200 bet, his opponent rechecked his cards before mucking, sending the pot to the young Full Tilt Pro.
H.O.R.S.E. is such a specialized game that it tends to attract -- at the higher levels anyway -- mostly pros.
Recognize any of these? Vanessa Rousso, Erik Seidel, Howard Lederer, Marc Goodwin, Dario Alioto, Richard Ashby, Mike 'Timex' McDonald, Shaun Deeb, Andy Black and Marcus Golser... and that's just upstairs!
