After a long day of heads-up play, our Final Four is set. Vanessa Selbst will take on Alec Torelli, while Kenny Tran will square off with Jonathan Jaffe. Play resumes at 2pm PT tomorrow. Join us!
It's all over. Lyle Berman and Alec Torelli got it all in preflop, with Berman the short stack. Torelli held ; Berman held . Berman couldn't connect with the board and is eliminated in fifth place.
With four hours completed, it's clear that Alec Torelli is becoming frustrated in his match with Lyle Berman. The two players are once again about even in chips. Torelli had Berman on the ropes, but Berman slipped away and even took a chip lead of his own before Torelli whittled him back down. The blinds are up to 20,000 and 40,000, or 16 big blinds for two dead even stacks. It should be over soon, merely by default.
It had been a series of all in bets from one player or the other preflop, and finally both agreed to give it a go. Lyle Berman opened ; Alec Torelli showed . The first card off the deck was the , and it was joined by the and the . Berman made a lock hand on the turn with the ; the river was superfluous.
After the hand, Berman had 422,000 chips to Torelli's 858,000. Two hands later, they got it in preflop again. Berman showed ; Torelli held . The board of made another big hand for Berman. Just like that, he has the chip lead, with 796,000 chips to Torelli's 484,000.
Alec Torelli (maybe?) is making some headway against Lyle Berman. The current chip count is 950,000 for Torelli to 330,000 for Berman. Torelli has been taking a series of small pots off of Berman.
The last tournament to start the day - the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event - has now concluded play for the day. The table with Lyle Berman and Alec Torelli is the only tournament table remaining in the whole of the Rio until noon tomorrow.
Small pots continue to rule the day in the match between Lyle Berman and Alec Torelli. The blinds (currently at 10,000 and 20,000) are not a factor yet, but we are slowly -- some might say glacially -- getting there.
The stacks continue to remain virtually dead even.
Alec Torelli has started suggesting to Lyle Berman that they run a board with one person taking A-K and the other taking Q-Q, with the winner of the hand the winner of this heads-up match. He also offered to play red-black.
The last chip count had Berman at 655,000 and Torelli at 625,000.