Quest of a Closet Poker Player

I watched a table for thirty minutes from the rail of Day 3 of the HORSE event. Let me give you some initial thoughts.

This is John Hanson, the chipleader heading into today. I watched Table 65, which looked like this:

1 Daniel Negreanu 307,000
2 Joe Tehan 166,000
3 David Singer 332,000
4 Dewey Tomko 119,000
5 John Hanson 641,000

6 David Oppenheim 469,000
7 Erik Seidel 194,000
8 Thomas Weideman 127,000

Stud, 2k ante, 3k bring-in, 10k/20k bets.

• Singer and Oppenheim got tangled in two hands in a row, with Singer losing both.
• Seidel and Negreanu then got in a hand with Seidel completing with an Ace and Negreanu showing Queen. Negreanu paired the queen and took down the pot.
• Seidel raised, Weideman 2-bet, and Singer 3-bet. He took down the pot after the next card.
• Negreanu completed and took down Singer’s bring-in.
• Tehan took down a fourth street pot with Singer.
• Weideman got involved in a three-way pot with Tehan and Singer. Singer took the pot at the end and Weideman was down to 16k.
• Weideman completed with an 8 showing and Negreanu put him all-in. Weideman had a pair of fours down and caught quads to beat Negreanu’s almost flush.
• Tomko got involved in his first hand. He completed with a 9 up and Daniel called with a 6. Tomko caught 42 and Negreanu raised him with 6-9-2 showing. He mucked.
• Hanson brought in with 2h. Singer completed, and he called. He got out on fourth street.

Coverage is going to be very, very tough. We have no access currently, everything restricted to ESPN and PokerNews.

If this thirty minutes is indicative, I would call this pot avoidance poker. Players are steering clear of getting involved too much. I’ll try to bring more later.

UPDATE 4:ooPM

A quarter of the field is gone in the first ninety minutes of play.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.