L.A. Poker Classic Day 2
Dr. Pauly, Change 100, John Caldwell, Justin Shronk, Dr. Tim Lavalli, and Amy Calistri comprise the PokerNews.com team currently tackling the World Poker Tour's L.A. Classic at the Commerce Casino. Traditional media would give the bland chip counts and maybe the same file-and-form questionare to each tourney runner. But, PokerNews is helping to infuse some life into web-based tourney poker reporting by combining personality with excellent live reporting that you can follow at from this link at PokerNews.
If you'd like to see the faces (and Amy's renowed clevage) behind the hard working crew, head over to Dr. Pauly's personal poker blog to check them out.
One such story that you probably won't find printed in a magazine or newspaper concerns the antics of Joe Sebok and Gavin Smith. Prop bets are a way of life in the poker world, betting on the color of the turn card, whether your waitress finished college, and the ever popular last-longer bet. The last-longer bet is usually between two people in a tourney who wager something like say… getting a tattoo on your ass of your opponent's initials if you bust out first. Thanks to Gavin exiting the tourney first, he'll remember the 2007 L.A. Poker Classic with every shower since "J.S." will be inscribed permanently to his butt. Hope the tattoo artist consumes some Pepto prior to the inking.
Here's a snippet of the Day 2 recap from Dr. Pauly that left JC Tran in the lead:
Duke University student Jason "Strassa" Strasser had a quiet day as he slowly built up his stack until he caught a lucky flop against Michael Binger. Strasser was all in preflop with Q-Q against Binger's pocket Aces. Strasser flopped a set of Queens to send Binger to the rail as that hand pushed him into the Top 10 in chips. The beat was so bad that it took Binger several beers to calm him down as he recanted the bad beat to anyone in the casino who would listen as he referred to Strasser as "that internet player who cracked my pocket Aces."
Several other players had their aces cracked at the LAPC as they headed to the rail including Mike "The Mouth" Matusow. On Day 1, Daniel Negreanu busted out after get his A-A cracked twice in the last three hands he played.
Players eliminated on Day 2 included Gavin Smith, David Chui, Kathy Liebert, Mark Newhouse, Shane "Shaniac" Schleger, Chad Brown, Mike Matusow, Eric "Rizen" Lynch, David Plastik, Allen Kessler, Erick Lindgren, Carl Olson, Tony Ma, Men the Master, Todd Brunson, Harry Demetriou, Robert Mizrachi, David Benyamine, Phil Laak, Shannon Shorr, Maria Ho, Joe Cassidy, Freddy Deeb, Patrik Antonius, Young Pham, Michael Binger, Haralabos Voulgaris, Joe Sebok, Isabelle Mercier, Erica Schoenberg, Joe Bartholdi, Capt. Tom Franklin, Sean "Sheiky" Sheikhan, and Martin De Knijff.
Several seasoned veterans survived the cut including Chau Giang, Barry Greenstien, Minneapolis Jim Meehan, Ted Forrest, C.K. Hua, Minh Ly, Jesse Jones, Joe Awada, Bill Edler, Kristy Gazes, Ed Moncada, The Grinder, Steve Brecher, Erik Seidel, and Max Pescatori