The Steinhorn Stare

We’re a couple hours from the start of Day 4 of the 2007 $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event, and Jason Heidema is still doing great. As I’ve been doing the past couple days, I’ll continue providing real-time updates of his progress (at least as real-time as he’ll give them to me).

While the tournament starts up again at noon, here are some updated statistics (based on my calculations) to catch you up:

• The tournament started with a total of 6358 players one week ago, and is now down to 337 players
• Every remaining player is now guaranteed $39,445, with the winner getting $8.25M
• The average chip stack for the remaining players is a bit above $374,000, median stack is about $321,000, and the chip leader is Dario Minieri, with about $2.4M in chips (Dario has about $900K more chips than the next nearest competitor)
• With $205,000 in chips, Jason is 231st out of the 337 remaining players, putting him above about one-third of the field

For those who don’t play a lot of poker, let me put something into perspective. While Jason has below average chips right now, things change very quickly at this point in the tournament. Not only could someone with over a $1M in chips get knocked out in one or two hands, someone with a chip stack like Jason’s could easily win a couple big hands in a row and quickly move up among the chip leaders. Not to mention that one of Jason’s great strengths is playing this part of the tournament and in this situation; he has an amazing ability to get selectively aggressive and to put together a good run of strong plays to put himself right back in contention with the big stacks. I’ve seen him do it a number of times, and am looking forward to seeing him do it again today.

That said, I just took a look at Jason’s table for today, and he’s up against some amazing poker talent. While many of these people may not be household names, I recognize and/or know most of these guys, and to make a long story short, the total tournament winnings among Jason’s eight table-mates is over $6.4M.

Here’s the specific lineup, including chip counts (and links to each player’s previous tournament success):

  Seat 1: Mark Weitzman   $155,000
Seat 2: Randy Holland    $400,000
Seat 3: Kevin Howatt     $145,000
Seat 4: Jac Arama          $366,000
Seat 5: David Levi          $262,000
Seat 6: Thomas Barnard  $596,000
Seat 7: Allan King           $400,290
Seat 8: Mark Ellerbe        $434,000
Seat 9: Jason Heidema   $205,000

I’ll continue to post updates right here as I get them…

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Update (11:57am): Things are about to get underway and cards should be in the air shortly. I spoke with Jason for a while this morning, and after briefing him on his table and letting him scream “F***!!!” a few times, we held a strategy session and realized that there are some bright sides to this tough table. If he can pick up a couple hands in the first hour of play, hopefully it will be another long day. If not, he’ll have to rely on aggressive play and good reads to get him past the next couple levels. Regardless, it sounds like he’s ready.

Update (12:55pm): Just sent Heidema a text letting him know that eliminations were going very quickly early in the day (I probably get better info from the WSOP blog than he gets by being there, unfortunately). He texted me back letting me know he’s at $255,000 in chips. No more info than that, but at least he’s moving in the right direction.

Update (1:05pm): End of Level 15, and players are on a 20 minute break. Jason is getting a good feel for his table, and is pretty comfortable. He’s at $240,000 in chips, and has the button to begin the next round. Level 16 has blinds of 4000/8000/1000. Don’t know for sure, but I believe enough players have been eliminated that the payouts have increased to $45,422.

Update (1:50pm): As reported on the WSOP blog, this hand occured just before the last break at Jason’s table (Jason wasn’t involved):

   David Levi Rivers a One Outer
David Levi was all in with K-K against Kevin Howatt’s A-K. Howatt flopped a Ace and was ahead until Levi rivered a case King. He won the pot with a set. His stack increased to 350,000.

Unfortunately, David Levi isn’t the guy at the table you want getting lucky and accumulating chips.

Update (2:25pm): Just got a quick text from Jason. Still in the $235,000 range. He also mentioned that Seat 6 (Thomas Barnard) just lost all his chips to Seat 7 (Allan King) on a huge bluff, and now Allan King has over $1M in chips. I guess if anyone at your table has to have a huge stack, you want it to be a guy on your right (chips tend to flow around the table clockwise) who doesn’t seem to have a lot of experience. Hopefully Jason can take advantage.

Update (3:15pm): Folks - I’m very sad to report that Jason’s run at the World Championship is over. After the chip-leader on his right came in for a pre-flop raise, Jason looked down at pocket tens, and had to seize the opportunity. He pushed all-in, his opponent thought for a minute and called with AKs. A king came on the flop, and unfortunately, Jason didn’t improve on the turn or river. He went out in 226th place, earning $45,422.

From the WSOP Blog:

   Jason Heidema Eliminated
Jason Heidema moved all in for 150,000 with 10-10. Allan King called with As-Ks. The flop was Kh 6d 2d and King took the lead. The turn was the 3c and the river was the Ac. King’s hand held up as Jason Heidema headed to the rail.

CONGRATULATIONS HEIDI ON AN AWESOME RUN!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 8:42 am and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.