Day 3 Chipleader Harrison Gimbel entered the day feeling a little charmed as far as this poker tournament was concerned. After all he flopped the nut flush against online poker pro Justin Bonomo and he called every one of Bonomo’s bets until he had his stack. He also snapped off another quasi-online poker superstar Barry Greenstein. Greenstein is revered by the online poker set but is certainly more well known for his live successes.
After a long day of middling chips with middling chances Barry Greenstein went broke on this hand. He pushed out a raise of 8,000 and hoped he got a taker. The fresh faced kid decided to lock horns with the legend and Gimbel fired out a three-bet to 23,000. Greenstein didn’t hollywood it, he just shoved in 28,000 on top. Now, the kid had to think for a while. Yes, he didn’t like his hand all that much but.. he was somewhat priced in. In one of poker’s classic matchups Gimbel showed 6♠4♠ while “The Bear” Greenstein held pocket Aces.
Gimbel improved slightly when he hit a straight. As much as Greenstein wanted it to, the board hadn’t paired with an Ace on the River however an Ace on the River was quickly autographed and given to the kid, as Barry signed his book “Ace on the River.” Gimbel wasn’t the only online poker kid making waves in the Bahamas in fact Ryan D’Angelo who won two WCOOP events last year wen streaking… streaking up the leaderboard.
D’Angelo watched the field get whacked, not whittled, but whacked down to size and fertilized his chip-stack into a monster by growing it to almost 7.5 million. It wasn’t all kids at the PCA, as John Duthie got some back for the old timers by crawling into second place in chips with 5.3k. The other names found the exits as Johnny Lodden, Bill Gzes, Huck Seed, the lovely Liz Lieu all had their poker tournament end a couple of days earlier than they wanted it to.
The roller coaster ride that Wayne Bentley has been on continued in dramatic jaw dropping fashion. Seems like the kid can’t start a day without a leak, a major leak, a transmission wrecking leak that will stop most cars dead in their tracks, but Bentley is proving to be a resilient fellow. The Brit started with 500k in chips. He started stashing it in bits and pieces all around his table and pretty soon all he had left before him was 80k in chips. Then, he shifted gears.
The Bentley went from reverse to every gear he possessed speeding back into contention. When the smoke cleared from the burnt rubber that was his day Bentley had 2.878 million and was once again threatening from the top half of the field. 62 became 24 on the day.
The final hand that completed play developed in gruesome fashion. Damien Rony doubled up one time World Series of Poker player of the year Jeff Madsen, now a virtual old man in the new age of poker, when his 44 ran into Madsen’s pocket 7s. He got dealt the exact same hand and heard some of the worst words a poker player can hear when his tournament life is on the line: “I’ll gamble with you.”
His opponent Zachary Goldberg held A5 of hearts and had to be pleased that he had two overs. The turn gave him four to a flush and Damien Rony braced himself for any of a slew of outs that could send him rail-ward. It was an Ace on the River that did the damage and somewhere Barry Greenstein sold another book.
As the 24, mostly kids, return to play tomorrow most of them will be looking up at D’Angelo and Gimbel. There should be wild swings, especially as far as Wayne Bentley is concerned, and it’s looking more and more likely youth will be served.