Poker Articles

The streets of Budapest erupted into a chorus of cheers on Tuesday, as Hungarian PocketFiver Peter Belabacsi Traply (pictured at right) captured the country’s first World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet. Traply emerged victorious from the pack in the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout, Event #41 of the 2009 WSOP. His win marked the 13th bracelet taken home by a PocketFiver and the third in the last two days. Heads-up, Traply defeated Andrew luckychewy Litchtenberger, boosting the total take by PocketFivers to over $16 million. PocketFivesLive.com, which provides WSOP coverage of online poker players, is camped out at the Rio following every turn of the card.

Traply and Litchtenberger (pictured at left) knocked out each member of the five-handed final table, setting up a PocketFiver versus PocketFiver showdown with a WSOP gold bracelet and $348,000 first place payday on the line. Litchtenberger’s stack was crippled shortly into play after losing a race with A-Q against Traply’s pocket sixes. The flop came ace-high, sending Litchtenberger into the lead, but a six on the turn secured a double up for Traply. However, Litchtenberger mounted a comeback, boosting his stack from 250,000 to nearly four million. In the end, Traply’s A-K defeated Litchtenberger’s A-J after the board ran out 5-3-A-Q-Q. Litchtenberger took home $215,000 and both players recorded their first WSOP final table.

Traply sits at 19th on the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and is a former Triple Crown winner. He finished second in the No Limit Hold’em 2X Chance Turbo tournament held as part of the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) in April. On the same night, Traply took down the Friday Night Fight on Full Tilt Poker for $23,000. He’s three months removed from emerging victorious in the PokerStars $100 rebuy for $35,000. Litchtenberger won the SCOOP Mid-Stakes Heads-Up event for $172,000 in April and finished second in the Sunday Million in November for $127,000.

Chris SLOPPYKLOD Klodnicki (pictured at right) was bumped in third place from the $2,500 buy-in Mixed Games event (#42) for $97,000. During Omaha, Klodnicki was all-in after a flop of 9-4-3 with two spades holding A-9-6-3 for top and bottom pair. Jerrod Ankenman held a flush draw with A-K-K-2. A spade promptly hit on the turn, securing Ankenman’s flush and sending the PocketFiver home. PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Rich Ryan, who watched the action unfold, recalled, “Klodnicki suffered a blow on Day 2 that nearly ended his tournament. After losing a 400,000 chip pot with kings against queens, he easily could have packed up and moved on. Instead, Chris patiently worked his short stack back up and made Day 3, where he found himself at the final table. Klodnicki was unable to ship the bracelet, but mounting such a great comeback is nothing less than admirable.”

Jon PearlJammer Turner (pictured at left), who held the chip lead entering the final day of play in Event #42, took fifth for $49,000. His exit came during Limit Hold’em play. Turner was all-in pre-flop with A-J, but Ankenman’s K-9 was too much on a board of 9-8-7-8-6. It was Turner’s second final table of the 2009 WSOP, having also done so in the $2,500 buy-in Omaha/Seven Card Stud High-Low Eight or Better event (#25). Ryan noted, “Turner was in control for the majority of this tournament. He took the chip lead early on in Day 2 and never looked back. He was a clear favorite to make the final table, and, once there, was still second in chips with five players remaining. Unfortunately for Jon, he caught a bad string of hands at the wrong time.”

Elsewhere in the Amazon Room, Allen albari Bari and Ryan gotskillz Fisler (pictured at right) are the lone PocketFivers remaining in Event #44, the $2,500 buy-in Seven Card Razz tournament. Both will be seated at Table 155 to open play on Wednesday, when 13 players will vie for the $188,000 first place prize. Jeffrey Lisandro has already won two bracelets during the 2009 WSOP and leads the way in this event, whose field also includes Kenna James, Villie Wahlbeck, Michael Craig, and Al Barbieri. Here’s how the field looks entering play today:

1. Jeffrey Lisandro - 438,000
2. Steve Diano - 302,000
3. Don Zewin - 300,000
4. Kenna James - 284,000
5. Warwick Mirzikinian - 191,000
6. Ryan Fisler - 190,000
7. Bill Cole - 182,000
8. Michael Craig - 102,000
9. Nikolay Evdakov - 88,000
10. Eric Rodawig - 75,000
11. Allen Bari - 62,000
12. Ville Wahlbeck - 55,000
13. Al Barbieri – Did Not Report

Visit PocketFivesLive.com for the latest updates on online poker players battling it out in the 2009 WSOP.