WSOP Day 5: Aces shoot McManus to the to...

By Simon Young PartyPoker’s James McManus won a huge 800,000 pot to put him second in chips with just 162 players left. He moved up to 2.7 million after busting Mao Qiu with aces. But it was not easy. Qiu opened up for 36,000, Nicholas Sliwinski called from the small blind and James raised it up to 110,000. Both others called, and they saw a flop of 9-6-10 with two hearts....

WSOP Day 5: PartyPoker’s Irish pai...

Simon Young They’ve become quite friendly while they travelled the long WSOP road together, but all that will be forgotten today. James McManus and Stephen Kenna, both from Dublin, are our last remaining PartyPoker qualifiers, and with just 189 remaining, they have been drawn to play next to each other today. James McManus and Stephen Kenna seated together today James has over...

WSOP Day 4: PartyPoker’s Irish qua...

By Simon Young Such has been the pace of bust outs today – we’re down to 189 from the 474 starters – that tournament bosses called it a night at 11pm, a full two-our level and 38 minutes ahead of schedule. PartyPoker’s remaining two qualifiers both now progress to Day 5 and are guaranteed a payday of at least $38,600. But they’ll be looking to take much...

WSOP Day 4: McManus takes huge pot to hi...

By Simon Young PartyPoker’s James McManus continues to impress with his power poker. Just now he got involved in the biggest pot of his tournament and won it to soar to 1.7 million chips, enough to put him sixth out of the remaining 202 players.   Pile ‘em high: James McManus  With the blinds now at 5,000-10,000 with 1,000 ante, David Saab made it 30,000 to go from mid...

WSOP Day 4: Tyron falls at a table of de...

By Simon Young Tyron Krost had it tough when he moved to the same table as Allen Cunningham. But it got a whole lot worse when Gus Hansen later sat down as well. You expect to face better pros deep in an event, but even so our qualifier from Australia was unlucky to find these particular sharks circling his table. With one of the shorter stacks, Tyron had little room to do much at all,...

WSOP Day 4: Jiri Hlavaty busts...

By Simon Young It had been a long, hard struggle for PartyPoker’s Jiri Hlavaty today. Each time I passed him by he was folding, and his stack, which began at 235,000, was getting smaller. Eventually, when he was down to 70,000, he felt enough was enough and pushed his stack into the middle holding A-9. Sometimes it gets folded round, occasionally a big stack will call with...

WSOP Day 4: Kenna on a charge as McManus...

By Simon Young PartyPoker’s two Irish qualifiers are tearing up the field. While James McManus, who started on 875,000 has moved up to 1,075,000, Stephen Kenna is hot on his heels after shooting up to 960,000. Stephen, who only took up online poker while laid up with a serious back injury, has had a rush of good cards to propel him skywards. I picked up the action when the board...

WSOP Day 4: Martin El-Kher busts...

By Simon Young If anyone thought the pace of bust outs would slow on Day 4, they are very wrong. After the first two-hour level today we lost 111 more players, although each went to the rail with a wad of dollars in their pocket. One of those was PartyPoker qualifier Martin El-Kher, who started today on 155,000, but never got going. I saw him lose a large chunk when he called a...

WSOP Day 4: McManus in top ten as big mo...

By Simon Young James McManus today sits down for the biggest poker game of his life. It’s Day 4 of the WSOP Main Event, we’re already into the money, and the Irish PartyPoker qualifier is a highly impressive ninth in the overnight chip counts with 875,000. He’d been ducking and diving with a nice stack all day yesterday, much of it spent on the TV feature table, then...

WSOP Day 3: PartyPoker players cash as b...

By Simon Young The bubble period was achingly long and tense. The tournament went hand-for-hand nine places out from the money, and with 70-odd tables still active, it took some organising as every table had to finish the current hand before the whole room could move on to the next one. But eventually, one by one, the player total dropped and we now have 666 very happy people who are...