Thursday, 28th March 2024 19:49
Home / Uncategorized / EPT8 Monaco $25,000 High Roller: A Round With Ivey and Boeree…
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Even in this world of shimmering stars, there is imbalance in the universe. Some tables seem even more stacked than others, a feat that might initially appear impossible.

But here’s proof. Table 45 began today looking like this:

1 – Liv Boeree, 2 – Mike McDonald, 3 – Faraz Jaka, 4 – Phil Ivey, 5 – David Sands, 6 – Joseph Elpayaa, 7 – Martin Finger, 8 – Andrew Badecker

and after McDonald and Jaka departed, they were replaced by Jason Somerville and Patrik Antonius.

Those latter two have also now busted, as did Sands recently, when he got it all in with a rag ace and lost to Ivey’s slightly bigger ace. It meant that when we went looking for today’s installment of “A Round With…”, the table line up was as follows:

Seat 1 – Liv Boeree – 330,000
Seat 2 – Nathan Schoo – 170,000
Seat 3 – empty
Seat 4 – Phil Ivey – 395,000
Seat 5 – William Reynolds – 105,000
Seat 6 – Joe Elpayaa – 210,000
Seat 7 – Andrew Badecker – 680,000

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Liv Boeree

And here is how they were playing.

(The blinds were 2,000-4,000 (500 ante), with 25 players left.)

Hand one – Phil Ivey on the button
Liv Boeree raised to 10,000 and Reynolds shoved from the small blind for almost exactly 100,000. Boeree folded.

Hand two – William Reynolds on the button
Schoo opened from the hijack to 8,000 and everyone folded.

Hand three – Joe Elpayaa on the button
William Reynolds opened from the cut off to 8,500. It was good as everyone else passed.

Hand four – Andrew Badecker on the button
Folded to Badecker’s button, the table chip-leader (and also the leader of the whole tournament) raised to 9,000. He won.

Hand five – Liv Boeree on the button
Joe Elpayaa got his chips in first, sitting in the hijack seat. That was also UTG+1 so he was only the second person with the opportunity to open the pot. He made it 9,000 and Badecker, one seat to his left, three bet to 22,000. Everyone else folded quickly, as did Elpayaa.

Hand six – Nathan Schoo on the button
Andrew Badecker opened to 9,000. It won.

That was the end of the first round, which flew past in double quick time. None of these folk are stalling over their decisions, and there was no significant change in the stacks. So let’s try a few more hands…

Hand seven – Phil Ivey on the button
It was folded all the way round to William Reynolds in the small blind. He opened to 8,500 and everyone folded.

Hand eight – William Reynolds on the button
It was folded all the way to William Reynolds, who had shown a good deal of willingness to get involved. And he did again, raising to 8,500. But Andrew Badecker called from the big blind and that took the two of them to a flop of K♣ 10♣ 3♠ .

Check, check.

The K♦ turned and Badecker bet 13,500, which Reynolds called. That took them to a 2â™  river. Badecker didn’t slow down. He slid out a bet of what looked something like 30,000. Reynolds didn’t even want to know how much it was and folded.

Hand nine – Joe Elpayaa on the button
Phil Ivey opened from the hijack to 10,000 and Liv Boeree defended her big blind with a call. The flop came J♦ 8♦ Qâ™  and Boeree check-folded to Ivey’s 13,000 bet.

Hand ten – Andrew Badecker on the button
William Reynolds opened from the hijack, making it 8,500. And that was good.

At this point, a player on one of the other tables busted, which meant only 24 were left in the tournament. The two spare seats on this table were quickly filled Haralabos Voulgaris and Zachary Clark.

I took that as my prompt to leave one of the least scintillating “A Round With…” posts of all time. But shortly after, word reached that Ivey had accounted for Boeree, vaulting him north of 700,000 and into the chip lead.

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Phil Ivey

Perhaps we will be back…

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