Friday, 29th March 2024 06:12
Home / Uncategorized / 2008 World Series: Three tables in search of one

It had to happen and now it has. We have reached three tables in the World Series main event.

Three tables, 27 players, one more day until we reach the final nine. Along the way, there were all the twists and turns we expect as we reach the business end of these monster tournaments. We had vast crowds, mountains of chips, huge checks being written and countless stories. We even had a rainstorm.

But when the clouds cleared we were left with a sharper picture of where this thing is headed — and as ever, PokerStars players feature heavily in any reportage.

What started as a 79-strong field of players at noon ended with three tables in less than twelve hours. Among the remaining 27 are eight PokerStars players. Here they are with their approximate chip counts.

David Chino Rheem.jpg

David “Chino” Rheem — (8,280,000)— David “Chino” Rheem is having a great time since he arrived in Vegas. Not only did he take 5th place in the $5k NL tournament in June for $93,624, he also won a super satellite back in April for a $25,700 seat in the WPT Five Star World Poker Classic. Generally, the 28-year-old from Miami, Florida has enjoyed a string of tournament successes recently including five WSOP cashes in the last three years. This includes $327,981 in the 2006 $1,000 NLHE event.

Thumbnail image for Chris Klodnicki.jpg

Chris Klodnicki — (6,245,000)–Chris Klodnicki is a 23-year-old professional poker player from New Jersey. He started playing six years ago after getting some instruction from his brother. After running over home games and the poker scene in Atlantic City, Klodnicki turned pro. After a couple of unsuccessful World Series tries, Klodnicki returned this year to play. After coming runner-up to Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein in the Razz event, Klodnicki has made a massive run through the Main Event field.

Brandon Cantu.jpg

Brandon Cantu–(4,740,000)–PokerStars player Brandon Cantu is both a World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker winner. The latter of these he won back in June 2006 as a 25-year-old, taking $757,839 for first place in what was then the largest non-main event field in WSOP history, a $1,000 buy-in hold ’em tournament. More recently, his WPT crown at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars in March of this year swelled his bankroll to the tune of $1 million. Now, he’s looking at the possibility of a $9 million payday in the World Series Main Event.

Darus Suharto.jpg

Darus Suharto — (4,510,000) — Darus Suharto is from Toronto, Canada. He is an accountant who loves his job so much, he would find it hard to quit, even if he won the World Series Main Event. He would like to find more time to play poker, but because he spends so much time working, most of his tournament poker experience comes from playing online. He qualified for his seat on PokerStars and is looking to improve on his modest in-the-money finish from last year.

Owen Crowe.jpg

Owen Crowe — (3,800,000) — Known as “ocrowe” to just about everyone in the online poker world, Owen Crowe is a 26-year-old professional poker player. Famed for a monster year on PokerStars in 2006, including a Sunday Million win, it’s been a good World Series for the Canadian who took over $81,000 last month in a $1,500 no limit hold’em event for his eighth place finish. Now he’s already better than that in the Main Event and guaranteed $257,334 as he goes into the final day of play before the final table break.

Ylon Schwartz.jpg

Ylon Schwartz — (3,655,000) — A native New Yorker — born in Manhattan and now living in Brooklyn — Ylon Schwartz is a chess whizz and a poker player with 11 previous cashes in World Series events dating back to 2005. He’s equally at home playing chess in the super-competitive games in New York’s Washington Square Park, idling the time in Golden Nugget low limit ring games or tearing up the major poker tournaments in the east coast casinos of Atlantic City and Foxwoods.

Tim Loecke.jpg

Tim Loecke — (2,280,000) — Tim Loecke qualified for the Main Event on PokerStars, spending only $63 for his $10,000 seat. Now he is guaranteed more than a quarter-million bucks and has a shot at millions. From Highland Park, Illinois, Loecke is a 37-year-old who still maintains his Iowa farm boy roots. He once said, “I used to milk 70 cows a day as a kid.” Now he is a director of sales who dreams of winning big enough money that he can use it for such things as restoring the little league baseball program in his hometown, Greeley, Iowa.

IJG_3207.jpg

Phi Nguyen — (1,020,000) –Phi Nguyen is no stranger to the World Series and as a double bracelet winner, winning the $2,500 no limit hold’em event in 2003 and the $1,500 hold’em shootout a year later, the Californian would be one of the favourites were it not for a short stack. He has impressive form this year having narrowly missed out on the final table in the $1,000 no limit hold’em, finishing tenth for $36,176. He also has numerous World Series and WPT cashes to his name and career winnings of $1.3 million.

Today was not only a day to build for tomorrow. It was also a day to say goodbye to some good contenders. Most notably, we lost Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin. Ramdin had a rough start to the tournament series, but finished strong with a final table in the $1,500 HORSE event and a deep run in the Main. Here’s a look at all the PokerStars players who finished today.

For the full list of PokerStars results visit our WSOP Results page.

29

Cristian Dragomir

Romania

Qualifier

$193,000

31

Garrett Beckman

USA

Qualifier

$193,000

34

Greg Byard

USA

Qualifier

$193,000

35

Andrew Brokos

USA

Qualifier

$193,000

38

Felix Osterlund

Germany

Qualifier

$154,400

42

Jonathan Plens

USA

PokerStars player

$154,400

43

Jason Glass

USA

Qualifier

$154,400

48

Adam Levy

USA

Qualifier

$135,100

52

Mark Ketteringham

USA

PokerStars player

$135,100

54

Alex Outhred

USA

PokerStars player

$135,100

62

Geert Jans

Holland

Qualifier

$115,800

63

Brian Tatum

USA

Qualifier

$115,800

64

Victor Ramdin

USA

Team PokerStars Pro

$96,500

65

Larry Wright

USA

Qualifier

$96,500

72

Daniel Buzgon

USA

Qualifier

$96,500

75

Keith Hawkins

UK

PokerStars player

$77,200

Be sure to check out all of our video blogs from Day 6 and before on PokerStars.tv. Don’t miss the latest videos to get the password for the PokerStars.tv freeroll.

Selected chip counts from Day 6 can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page. When we have an official list from the WSOP tournament staff, we will post it on the same page.

If you would like to see PokerStars Blog World Series news in another language, be sure you take a look at all the other coverage on our German, Swedish, and Brazilian blogs.

Here’s a look back at all the coverage from Day 6.

The turn card
The view from table three
The morgue
From the heartland to the big time
Still in the fray
At the eye of the storm
Third year’s a charm
Four for the feature table
Cantu can still do

For coverage from all the previous days, we’ve posted summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D
Day 2A
Day 2B
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5

Study Poker with Pokerstars Learn, practice with the PokerStars app