Arguably the best father-son tandem in poker, with respect to Doyle and Todd Brunson, Barry and Jeff combined to win over $140k for the Shulman family today.
They weren’t the only story, however, as Maria Ho made her first cash and Andy Bloch provided some mainstream punch as he showed up on This American Life.
3) Shulman Show as Father, Son Go for Gold
Cardplayer’s Jeff Shulman and father Barry Shulman certainly put on quite a performance today with final-table finishes in the $5,000 Limit Hold’em and $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em, respectively.
Barry was up first as he entered the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em final table as one of the short stacks.
He wasted no time getting his chips in the middle and went out in eighth place when he shoved Q-8 suited into eventual winner Cliff Goldkind’s pocket aces. Barry picked up $53,669 for his efforts.
Not to be outdone, Jeff led the $5,000 Limit Hold’em final table for a period of time before eventually bowing out in third place for $92,562.
Interestingly Barry is the bigger lifetime winner in the family with $4.5 million in tournament earnings including first place in the WSOPE Main Event in 2009 and a third-place finish at the PCA in 2010.
Jeff has a not-too-shabby $3.3 million in lifetime tournament earnings, although the majority is from his fifth-place finish in the 2009 WSOP Main Event for $1.9 million.
2) Bloch Counts Cards on This American Life
Recent WSOP bracelet winner Andy Bloch has earned so much playing poker it’s easy to forget he got his start on the infamous MIT blackjack team that supposedly took Las Vegas casinos for millions.
Well we were given a reminder this week when he guest-starred on the popular NPR radio show This American Life.
Bloch stopped by the show to teach host Ira Glass and producer Robyn Semien how to count cards in a special episode about blackjack.
One of the highlights of the episode was when Bloch told them a story about how his friends used to bring him to the casino just so they could see him get kicked out.
Despite their best efforts Glass and Semien couldn’t get kicked out of a casino no matter how hard they tried to count cards.
Glass ended up losing over $348 of his own money by testing Bloch's methods. Maybe he’d fare better in the nightly WSOP Deepstack down here at the Rio. You can check the episode out here.
1) Near Miss for Maria Ho
So far Vanessa Selbst has been carrying the weight for the Selbst/Maria Ho/Liv Boeree/Vanessa Rousso house but that could be changing as Ho recorded her first deep run today.
Ho outlasted 2,776 players in Event 21 $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em before finally hitting the rail in 24th place for $12,621.
It was Ho’s first cash of the series and while it was likely a disappointing finish for the California native it is perhaps a sign of things to come.
For those keeping track at home Selbst has won $181k at the 2012 WSOP, Ho is now second with $12k and Boeree is third with $6,157 (that broken ankle might be slowing her down).
The only player who hasn’t cashed yet at the 2012 WSOP is landlord Vanessa Rousso. Perhaps she should crank up the rent as the rest of the house can certainly afford to pay.
For all the action from the WSOP in Las Vegas click through to our 2012 World Series of Poker Live Coverage section, brought to you by 888poker.com.
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