WSOP Day 21 Second Update - Pumpkins, Grinders, and the Lakers

The WSOP rolls on and our two final tables are clicking along. The PLO Final is down to five players with Miguel Proulx the current chip leader. The $10,000 Limit Holdem Championship started with Michael Mizrachi, David Chiu, and Brock Parker, but all of them have dropped by the wayside leaving Matt Keikoan the leader with 4 players left. The $1,500 NL is playing to the final table, or such is the play. The $5,000 NL Holdem is polishing off the last levels of Day 1 and the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E has burst the money bubble and hopes to play down to the final table tonight.

It'€™s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

Jameson Painter is at the $10,000 Limit Holdem Championship final table, his third of this WSOP. He finished 7th in the $1,500 Limit Holdem Event and 5th in the $2,500 Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball Event. This makes his 4th WSOP final table as he finished 8th in the $2,000 Limit Event last year.

Apparently Jameson has a tendency to wear orange shirts during poker tournaments. As such, he has picked up the nickname “pumpkin.” He has a crowd at the final table with a big sign that reads “I Heart Pumpkin!” (Heart actually the symbol for a heart) They also have his head superimposed onto a running pumpkin. At the time of my writing this, he has about 1.3 Million in chips.

Ok, I Get It. “The Grinder” Can Play More Than Just NL

Also at the final table of the $10,000 Limit Championship is Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. As I said before, had someone bet me that Mizrachi would make the final table of the $50k, I would have taken the bet against. I also would have lost. However, I had no clue that he would make both the 10k Stud AND 10k Limit final tables.



Poker players at some point have to adapt their game in order to survive and thrive and it looks like Mizrachi has adapted his game to include all poker variants (even though there's no WSOP 5 card draw event). And you cannot argue that he is “just on a good run.” His final tables are too varied to support that theory. Mizrachi is now tied for first in the Player of the Year standings. Will he be able to take home the prize? There are still plenty of tournaments left.

Lakers Win!

Just to tell you how closely I followed the NBA Finals, someone had to tell me tonight was Game 7. Of course, by the 4th quarter of the game, it was obvious that everyone’s attention was on the game and less on poker. As the game ticked down to the final minutes, players and railbirds huddled around the televisions. When the Celtics hit that three with 16 seconds left, we had players running from their seats to watch the rest of the game.



When the Lakers finally claimed the victory, we has several players cheering and one very boisterous fan made it well known how happy he was the Lakers won. Personally, I wasn’t all that into the series. When I followed basketball more closely, I used to follow the Lakers. I really don’t follow anyone now. I have a friend from Boston who is really pissed now, but hey, the Celtics still got to the finals and had a chance to win. It just wasn’t their time.

I will be back tomorrow to bring you more from the Rio. The Seniors Event kicks off tomorrow and I can almost bet you nobody will be silly enough to try and enter that event under the age of 50. Also, the 5 p.m. event is the $10,000 Heads-Up NL Holdem Championship. That should be a stellar field. Until then, stay tuned to pokerjunkie.com as we bring you coverage from the 2010 World Series of Poker.