I don't want to dig up the old thread, but I do want to thank all the P5ers who sweated me during the event, either virtually online or in person as scgolfer, colson10, beanie, BeL0WaB0Ve and XTracey did (as well as other people I'm sure I'm forgetting).

It was a whole lot of fun, and anyone who has seen BeL0W rail online, I gotta tell you his live railing style is very similar... He was probably the most confident person that the 4 was coming on the river in that one hand, he can clarify exactly what he said, but I think it was something along the lines of 'You're 100% to win this hand on the river Eric, you hit 2 outers in your sleep'.

It was an AWESOME experience, and all you P5ers that haven't been to the WSOP yet but are going, you're going to have a great time. There is nothing like seeing thousands of poker players just packed into the place playing 200+ tables at the same time. There's nothing like it.

I think I played REALLY well, and with the exception of one hand (which I'm certain will be aired) I feel I played pretty darn perfect, it'll be interesting to see how it comes across on ESPN.

-Rizen

GG
WP SIR!

congrats rizen, pstars blog has a nice writeup on you too.

RIZEN OWNNNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSs

GG

yea...I'm cracking my penny bank open to bet on Rizen to FT the main event...

Great work Rizen, i'm sure that bracelet will be coming real soon. Good luck in the rest of the series

First, I'd like to say Rizen played near perfect from what I could tell from the bleachers. Afew railers he forgot were Brandon Schaefer (SchaeferBear), TheWacoKidd, Mattg, and scarface...I'm sure I'm forgetting a few also.

The hand in question....all I can say is WOW nice read me. When Rocco bet 171k (the pot) with no sidepot, and a player all-in...I beleieve it took Rizen about 4 seconds to announce he was all-in for a little more then 80k over the 171k bet. It seemed like it took Rocco about 3 minutes before finally calling the extra 80k+, leaving about 75kish behind. During this time, schaefer and I were discussing the range of the 2 players. Rocco was VERY SOLID, never exposed mediocre holdings except for early in the FT when he raised from the c/o 3 BBs when he only had 5 BBs, and eventually ended up all-in pre-flop with Q10s vs the BBs 99 and won the race. Schaefer felt Eric had to have 2 pair, where as I thought Eric only needed K10+ to make this move as Rocco would easily bet A7 here, or any K-rag, knowing that he is probably way ahead of the shortstacks range, and I said that if I was Eric Id easily make this move with 56dd. Schaefer said that Rocco had to have a very strong hand to make this move, and a simple 7 or King-rag was not in his range. Schaefer OWNS, and was dead on.....OBV you can tell who has more live experience, and this hand will forever stand in my memory.

So, the cards were flipped over, and on a board of Kx7d4d, Rizen flipped over 74, and Rocco flipped over K7, while the shortstack who was all-in pre-flop showed Ac3c. Team Rizen saw the bad news, and I immediately noticed the upbeat attitude that we all shared suddenly was drained, as the great run appeared to becoming to an end. Screw that....I wasnt gonna let him go out with out a fight. I immediately told everyone to calm down. It went something like " This is all Rizen, guy hits 2-outers in his sleep. Not a Problem, he's like 90% favorite on this flop, not a problem." As we prepared for the turn card, banging my cardplayer magazine on my leg as hard as I could, I was screaming for the dealer to bring us that four!! Given it's for TV, there is like 3 minutes in between the flop and the turn when there is an all-in situation. I kind of felt like the ESPN crew was waiting for me to stop yelling four to give the dealer the que to bring us the turn card. So I quieted a bit and here came the 3d on the turn. We immediatly checked the Monitor to see if Rizen gained a diamond out, but none of the 3 players had a diamond, and the turn actually kept the baby stack alive drawing to two3's and three aces. As we all know when drawing against a better hand, if you don't improve the number of outs when the turn comes off, then your percentages of winning the hand decrease. So again I tried to motivate TeamRizen, letting them know that Rizen was still an 80% favorite to win the hand. The banging of the magazine on my leg continued, and I dont know if I ever screamed for a 4 so loud. This time I was not quieting down for the ESPN coverage, they were gonna have to edit my screaming out if they wanted to see the river, or remove me from the casino. What seemed like 10 minutes later, there lie the magical 4 on the river. IDK if I have ever heard such a loud thunderous noise of amazement. The funny thing is, and I suppose it could have been out of shock, but I firmly believe it is because Rizen just isn't human, he showed know emotion, not even a glance back at us in the crowd or nothing. Personally, if I were Rizen, I would have been doing the "lambeau leap" into the crowd. The most surreal river I have ever seen. We all started saying, GG tourney, NH Rizen.

This is where I proclaimed that not only was I the #1 spammer on stars (see chat-warnings, LOL), not only was I the #1 spammer on paradise (my favorite site to spam on, you can go so fast and they dont have support to issue petty warnings and bans), but I had now become the #1 spammer live. I was in the crowd and my pulse must have increased 3x in speed, I was racing off to call everyone and anyone, even as I was short of breath.

After a few suckouts, Rizen was back in the middle of the pack. 4-handed, Rizen got all-in pre-flop with AdKd vs 1010. The other guy had rizen cover by 8k. Let the chanting begin. BOOOOOOOOOM Ace in the window, followed by two ducks. I leaped in the air shouting, as the dream was alive. I kind of forgot that I did not have the cap on my pepsi, sorry guys. The turn and river bricked, and Rizen was chipleader 4-handed, soon to be 3-handed. Still, no emotion. I yelled to Eric, "Man, you cant even flash us a smile?" He looked back with an ear to ear grin, finally a human emotion from this machine.

After dinner, Rizen pretty much had the tournament wrapped up as he had Raef all-in w/ AK vs Raef's As8s. TeamRizen got giddy as we all knew that if Rizen won this pot, he'd be heads up for the 1st P5s bracelet of '06 with over a 5-1 chiplead. The flop came down J106, witht zero spades. Ok, we dodged his potential flush draw. In the bag, NAP. Turn brought a 6, pairing the board. Here came my most embarrassing moment. I'll admit, the prescription of my eyeglasses is nearly 2 years old, and I'm now convinced I need to go to the eye doctor when I get home. The river brought a J, double paring the board. I arrupted loudly for Rizen, as I thought the river was a King, and Rizen was scooping the pot. TheWacoKidd had to calm me down and point out that the board double paired, and it was a chopped pot. I can't wait to hear how Norman Chad makes fun of me, as I feel I was clearly identified as Rizen's #1fan (since his wife was forced to leave the gaming area due to the fact that she had their future poker champion with her in a stroller, and he was shy of the legal age by only about 20 years ) by the camera crew.

After that, it just appeared that nothing went right for Eric, and thats poker. Great way to kick off the series though, and railing you @ that FT ranks up there in my top 5 experiences I've had in my 26 years in this world. I lost my voice pretty much for the next day and a half, but it was worth it. Let me know next time you make a TV FT, if I'm not there already, you can fly me down and I'll accept 10% for railtarding you to victory.

GG sir

Rizen OWNS

Hope I can be 1/2 the player he is

BeL0W

that post just made MY pulse start beating faster, lol. nice post and congrats again rizen!

Wow,

Great play by play post! I'm heading out for event #31...if I even come close to a final table, I'm definitely enlisting your railing services.

F**k Cardplayer, the best coverage of the WSOP is on Pockets 5's.

lol... he knows this already :P no need to thank me boss... i should be thanking YOU! for as long as i've known u and all the times we did poker together... i always knew u were something remarkable. \im very proud of you boss and i definitely am looking forward to sweatin your many ft's to come.

it really sux u wont be back out here til the main event... but hey... like we discussed about the other night... i'll just have to FT the ladies event ... and like u said... when i do that? i'll definitely call u ...THAT WAY U HAVE AN EXCUSE TO CATCH THE NEXT FLIGHT AND BE BACK OUT HERE EARLIER THAN SCHEDULED!!!

*cross ur fingers!*

trace

Awesome dude

funguyrye

My first post here and I just wanted to say congrats rizen.. gg sir!