Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Big Stack Hunting

Event 1: $500 + $60 Deep Stack NL (2 Re-entry)

Mardakhayev Triples-Up

With 900 players in the Event Center and hundreds more in the Poker Room, it's tough to figure out who might be a chip leader. But you can bet anyone with 3 to 4 times the 25k starting stack is certainly near the top.

Emil Mardakhayev (Brooklyn, NY) tells us how he tripled up earlier in the day when he took out pocket aces and pocket kings with 5 7.

Mardakhayev saw the flop relatively cheaply from the big blind and flopped a pair, a flush draw, a gut shot straight draw and a gut shot straight-flush draw.

Mardakhayev hit two pairs on the turn, shipped 23k all-in and both big pairs called.

"I figured take a shot," says Mardakhayev, "If you don't hit, you can always re-enter."

When the river bricked, Mardakhayev tripled his stack and is now sitting at 80k.

Level 5 is winding down.