We've played through 10 levels in the Pavilion today and Day 1 of Event No. 5 is already becoming a distant memory - especially for the 1,856 players who won't be returning to try making the money tomorrow.
It was a real back and forth race for the chip lead during the last level. That was until Stephen Foutty won a 90,000 pot in a QQ vs. AK race.
The tournament brought out a large field, featuring a number of big name pros, but as statistics gurantee, a large percentage of those pros didn't make it to the end of the day. Some, such as Humberto Brenes, Chris Moorman, Praz Bansi, Yuvai Bronshtein and Andrew Lichtenberger, Zack Clark, Lauren Kling and Jason Somerville will be back tomorrow for Day 2.
Players will return at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon, hoping to make the money and then play down to the final table. With over $500,000 coming to the tournament's eventual winner, it'll be worth the effort.
With no time to spare, Stephen Foutty has rocketed to a commanding chip lead. He had been facing a preflop raise of 2,300 when he three-bet to 6,400. Foutty's opponent shoved all in for 90,000 and Foutty took a few minutes to think, saying "I am 99% sure I have you beat here." Fouty did indeed make the call.
Foutty:
Opponent:
The board came down and Foutty is now sitting on 209,000 chips. Not too bad.
Joe Bartholdi and Yuval Bronshtein had seen a flop of when Bartholdi bet 4,200 and was called by Bronshtein. The two checked around on the turn and Bartholdi checked the on the turn. Bronshtein didn't realize that Bartholdi had already checked and appeared to go into the tank for quite a long time. Eventually Bronshtein caught on and checked.
At this point, Bartholdi said "I thought I was about to get bluffed so hard," to which Bronshtein replied, "I thought you were tanking."
Joe Cada has vacated his seat and his chips are nowhere to be seen. None of us have worked for special investigations units, but we're left to assume that Cada has been eliminated from today's event.
Daniel Negreanu got his money all in with and was unable to stay ahead of his opponent's . He finished about 75 players from the money as the bubble quickly approaches. We expect play to tighten up somewhat as players try to make Day 2 and earn a paycheck in the process, but so far eliminations have been coming steady.