Home / Poker News October 2008 / PokerNews Cup Tony G Celebrity shootout Day 1 report
PokerNews Cup Tony G Celebrity shootout Day 1 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2008-10-19 17:24
240 players bellied up to the tables on Day 1 of the Tony G celebrity shootout, all looking to take down a share of the prize-pool as well as at least one of the $500 bounties pinned onto the heads of no fewer than 20 players in the field.
The action started out fast, as there was a 20 second limit on players’ acting times. The tourney would go ahead as a regular MTT, that is until the field narrowed down to 32. Then, chip-stacks would be balanced, and play would go on according to shootout rules.
Among the bounty-bearing participants were PokerNews’ own Tony G, John Caldwell, Mark Vos and Celina Lin.
Tony G was one of the first bounty bearing players to head to the rail. He ran into some quads early on, an encounter which left his stack in a pretty bad shape, and soon he had to go all-in. He chose to do it on a pair of 9s he picked up and shoved preflop against Con Cotsomitis’ A,2. The flop fell A,K,5 and Guoga found himself way behind. The 5 on the turn and the 4 on the river failed to bail him out.
Celina Lin, Billy Argyros and Jamie Pickering also left the tables fairly early on. Pickering busted out when his A,Q failed to stand up to a caller’s pocket 8s on a board of 9,6,5,4,3. Sam Khouiss dominated the early part of the shootout stage of the tournament, eliminating Antonis Kambouris, on a K,8 vs A,5 match-up.
After the bubble burst, Reza Vakili eliminated Stefan Fuchs and Roy Vandersluis. Vandersluis went all-in on an A,K to be called by Vakili on A,10. The flop fell K,Q,4 to put Vandersluis ahead as the 4 on the turn seemed to tighten his grip on the pot. The J on the river blew the whole thing up though, as it filled Vakili’s straight to send Vandersluis to the rail. Vakili then proceeded to bust Dennis Huntly.
Sam Khouiss became the chip leader for the day, after taking out Antonis Kambouris in one of the last few hands. His stack grew to 220,000 this way. He was followed on the leader-board by Reza Vakili with 205,000.
