The 35th and 36th events on the 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP) docket featured members of PocketFives coming away with bracelets. This year, a dozen PocketFivers have walked away with hardware and with another 20 events on tap, that total could rise even higher. Winning a bracelet on Wednesday at the Rio in Las Vegas was Chris indariva Tryba (pictured), who booked a $210,000 payday in a $2,500 Mixed Hold'em event (#35).Tryba entered the final table with a middle-of-the-road stack and heads-up play against bracelet winner Erik Cajelais took all of one hand. On a flop of Q-9-4, Tryba check-called a bet of 45,000 from Cajelais and the turn was a J. Tryba once again checked and Cajelais pushed out a bet of 130,000. Tryba once again called and the final card was an 8, which put three diamonds – 8, J, and Q – on board.
Tryba sprung his trap, betting 250,000, and Cajelais raised all-in. Tryba happily called and flipped over 10-9 of diamonds for a straight flush, crushing Cajelais' king-high straight. It was a truly dramatic hand that solidified Tryba's first WSOP bracelet.
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On booking a straight flush in the final hand, Tryba told WSOP staff, "I was looking over at my buddy and I knew [Cajelais] was going to raise. I was looking at him and I knew he wasn’t looking at me. I was like, ‘This is it. It’s all going in right here and I know he can’t beat me. This is awesome. This is unbelievable that this is going to happen."
Tryba is a WSOP Circuit regular whom WSOP officials noted had spent half of the last 365 days in hotel rooms following the roving tournament series. He's also lost weight, 60 pounds to be exact: "I’m juiced, I lost 60 pounds. If a person hasn’t played these tournaments for the whole summer, you can’t really explain it. It’s so mentally and physically exhausting that you have to be ready for it. This year, I was going to try to put my best foot forward and be ready, and I think I’m ready."
Phil Ivey (pictured), who is one final table away from tying the record for most final tables at a WSOP with six, finished in eighth place in Event #35 for $21,000. He was crippled in a hand against Samuel Golbuff after the latter cracked Ivey's pocket eights with 6-2. Golbuff spiked a gutshot on the river to score a straight and rake in nearly Ivey's entire stack.In the postmortem, PokerNews officials explained, "As the tournament director counted down that stack of Golbuff, all he could do was laugh at what had just happened while Ivey just stared blankly with his famous 'Ivey face' and mouth dropped open."
Here were the final table results:
1. Chris indariva Tryba - $210,107
2. Erik Cajelais - $129,766
3. Salman Behbehani - $93,842
4. Joep van den Bijgaart - $68,576
5. Michael Gathy - $50,640
6. Samuel Golbuff - $37,793
7. Brent Wheeler - $28,494
8. Phil Ivey - $21,699
9. Michael Foti - $16,692
On Thursday, U.K. poker player Craig mcc3991 McCorkell (pictured) booked a bracelet in Event #36, a $3,000 No Limit Hold'em Shootout. After poker pro Antonio Esfandiari was eliminated in third place, Jeremiah Fitzpatrick held a 3:1 chip lead over McCorkell entering heads-up play. But, the U.K. resident ran over his American opponent heads-up.In the defining hand of heads-up play, Fitzpatrick 3bet all-in before the flop with A-8 and McCorkell called all-in with pocket eights. The flop came down 10-6-K, which provided little help to Fitzpatrick, and a running 9-10 sealed the double up for McCorkell. Fitzgerald was down over 100:1 in chips at that point and went busto one pot later.
McCorkell, Fitzpatrick, and Esfandiari reportedly agreed to a deal three-handed, and at one point, Esfandiari held three-quarters of the chips in play. McCorkell became the first U.K. bracelet winner this year and a large contingent of Brits were on the rail rooting him on, including Chris moorman1 Moorman.
McCorkell told WSOP officials that the rail was quite lively: "There was an incident with a couple of people getting kicked out of here, but whatever. There was not one single person at the final table, when we were ten-handed, complaining about the noise of anything. Everyone was enjoying it. It was good banter between everyone. There was nothing bad going on. It was really good. It added to the atmosphere of the final table, for sure."
Here were the official final table results from Event #36:
1. Craig mcc3991 McCorkell - $368,593
2. Jeremiah Fitzpatrick - $228,261
3. Antonio Esfandiari - $151,613
4. Jonathan Lane - $112,512
5. Athanasios Athanasios 9 Polychronopoulos - $84,436
6. Alessandro Longobardi - $63,988
7. Roberto Romanello - $48,924
8. Thiago TheDecano Nishijima - $37,707
9. Joe Tehan - $29,277
10. Sador Gaziev - $22,899
Stay tuned to PocketFives for the latest WSOP coverage of online poker players.
