In a field of more than 7,000 poker players, it’s easy to overlook a couple of faces that ordinarily might feature prominently. On the other hand, in a blog post about a total of four players, it’s pretty much unforgivable to miss one out.
PokerStars Blog tries its hardest, but we all have our failings. Back on day 2B we introduced you to the newest recruits to Team PokerStars Pro Canada, and centred our attentions on Anh Van Nguyen, Pat Pezzin and Marcello del Grosso. That was fair enough, but for the best part of two days we had also been wandering past the maple-leafed sleeve of Greg DeBora, another Canadian and another Team PokerStars Pro who also joined the team this year.
For reasons that can only be described as incompetence on our part, DeBora missed the cut. But for reasons that can only be described as heightened competence on DeBora’s part, there’s going to be ample opportunity to redress the balance.
“I doubled up early,” DeBora said during the first break of day three. “I flopped a set of jacks and he (Alex Fitzgerald) shoved with ace-queen.” Fitzgerald missed what was a double belly-buster draw and DeBora moved to more than 130,000. “That’s exactly what I wanted,” DeBora said.
By his own admission, DeBora, who has seven WSOP cashes and a PCA final table to his name, has had a “terrible” World Series so far this year, bubbling the $10,000 limit hold ’em event and not even getting that close to the money in any other attempt. But that’s not to say this hasn’t been a good summer for DeBora. “I missed the first two weeks of the Series because I was in Lima for the Americas Cup of Poker,” he said. “We won it!”
DeBora beat his Team PokerStars Pro colleague Dennis Phillips, the captain of the United States team, heads up to take the title for Canada. Initially, the Latin American media contingent was peeved that it was the two North American giants slogging it out, but even they were won round by the opportunity to see the likes of DeBora and Phillips go head-to-head. (The event will now also be broadcast in Canada and the USA as a result.)
Although Phillips has long-since departed the World Series Main Event, and Van Nguyen and Del Grosso have also bust, DeBora and Pezzin are both still in. DeBora said that he’s got a pretty good table, with only Fitzgerald playing particularly aggressively. Pezzin, meanwhile, has slipped below the average, but remains confident.
“It seems like you don’t have a lot if you look around the table,” Pezzin said. “But it’s still 50 big blinds. There’s still a lot of room to play with.”
The longer they play, the more chance we get to write about them – DeBora very much included.
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ELIMINATIONS OF THE HOUR – PICTURE SPECIAL
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QUOTE OF THE HOUR
“Everyone’s a good player here, I don’t see the fish… That means it’s probably me.” – player on one of the secondary feature tables.
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JOE GIRON’S PHOTO HOUR
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CLIMBER OF THE HOUR
Angel Guillen now has 240,000 chips. He started the day with 86,000.
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HAND DISCUSSION OF THE HOUR
Player one: “I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew that I knew he knew.”
Player two: “I know”
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BOY SCOUT APPLICANT OF THE HOUR
The seven seat of a table in the orange section of the Amazon Room, who has a recently-used full-size blender next to his chair.
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ATOMIC FIREBALL FACT OF THE HOUR
Atomic Fireballs, the official candy of the PokerStars Blog, were invented in 1954 by Salvatore Ferrara
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HUMBERTO BRENES VIDEO OF THE HOUR