The World Poker Tour’s Mandalay Bay Poker Championship just wrapped up from Las Vegas and PocketFivers once again showed they can dominate in both the live and online poker arenas. Fresh off a 1-2-3 showing at the WPT’s Mirage Poker Showdown just over a week ago, PocketFivers made up two of the top four at the Mandalay Bay event. Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, who has been on a tear, finished second and cashed for $459,080. Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen finished in fourth place for $131,170. Both players were eliminated by eventual champion Shawn Buchanan. Hamby entered heads up play with a 2.8 million to 1.8 million chip lead. The key hand of heads up play went as follows, taken from the World Poker Tour’s blog of the final table: “Shawn Buchanan makes it 130,000 from the small blind. Jared Hamby re-raises 220,000. Buchanan quickly calls. The flop comes Q-9-4 [with two hearts]. Hamby bets 410,000. Buchanan calls behind. The turn is the nine of clubs. Hamby bets 600,000. Buchanan calls. The river is the king of diamonds. Hamby checks. Buchanan checks. Hamby says, ‘No pair.’ And Buchanan shows 3-3. Buchanan wins the biggest pot of the tournament and the crowd is going ballistic.” PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington talks about Hamby’s play: “Jared's amazing run continues. He is showing time and time again that he is one of the absolute best players in the world. He now has three consecutive main event cashes to go along with three outright victories in preliminary events. There have been a few hot players over the last few months, but none with more impressive results than Hamby.”
Rasmussen was also the victim of Buchanan. The WPT blog describes the hand he was eliminated on: “Shawn Buchanan raises to 62,000 and Thayer Rasmussen moves all-in for 278,000. David Levi goes into the tank, but eventually mucks his hand. Buchanan makes the call and shows A-J, while Thayer shows A-10. The board comes Q-6-3-6-7 and Thayer Rasmussen is eliminated in fourth place, collecting $131,170.” Rasmussen explains, “I'm confident my play on the final hand was a good one, as he had been extremely aggressive the whole tourney and his range there was probably very wide.” On the upcoming World Series of Poker: “I feel very confident heading into the WSOP. I'm going to be playing a ton of events, probably as many as possible other than the $5,000 rebuys and $50,000 HORSE events.” Harrington adds, “Rasmussen has been a respected and feared online poker player for a long time. He is now making the move into live tournaments and proving his skill there as well.”
J.C. “PartyPSux” Alvarado finished eighth after his straight and flush draws did not hit on the river against Hamby’s two pair. Instead, the river game Hamby a boat. He cashed for $43,720. Harrington on Alvarado: “Alvarado is quickly gaining respect in the poker world. At every tournament, I hear more and more people comment on how much they like his game and how solid of a player he is. Look for him to continue to improve as he puts in more and more time playing in live tournaments.” Ryan Daut, the champion of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January, finished in ninth place for an impressive string of live event cashes. He lost a race against Rasmussen with A-J against pocket tens and took home $34,980. The protégé of CardRunners.com Owner Taylor Caby, Daut should be a force at the WSOP. Caby offers the following words of advice: “Ryan just needs to go out there and play his game. He's a solid player that will make few mistakes and should capitalize on a lot of the dead money early on and hope to catch a few breaks if he needs them late in the tournament.”
These solid finishes by PocketFivers will hopefully serve as an omen of great things to come at the WSOP, which is currently underway. Check out PocketFivesLive.com for more information.
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