Billy "the Croc" Argyros raised to 150 and was called in two spots. One player who had mucked had accidentally exposed . Armed with that knowledge, the three players took a flop of . Croc led out for 225, then ended up in a raising war with one player. They were all in by the end of it.
Argyros:
Opponent:
Each player had flopped a set. Upon seeing Argyros' hand, his opponent was distraught. "Aaaaaaaah!" he shouted. "I'm drawing dead." Indeed, his lone out, the case nine, had already been mucked. Once the board ran out , he reported to the rail. Argyros is up to 10,000.
The coolers keep pouring in. The latest victim is Marwan Nassif, who has been crippled to 425 chips after flopping a set of threes on a board of and running into his opponent's set of eights. The board repeated, but not in a way that improved Nassif -- it fell running sevens on the turn and river.
Peter Aristidou is the latest bounty to be eliminated after he moved all in on a flop of . His opponent called from the button with for top pair-top kicker, but Aristidou had flopped two pair with his .
However the turn was a bad one for Aristidou; the fell to give his opponent a larger two pair. The river bricked out and Aristidou's bountry was claimed as he headed over to the cash games.
We don't have any official numbers yet, but we have counted thirty-seven tables in play. Since play today is 10-handed, when factoring in early eliminations that would mean that more than 400 players bought into today's event, more than last year.
David Saab was all in preflop for his last 675 in a multi-way pot. Saab knew he was in trouble once the live players committed their chips on the flop of as he tabled and was up against his opponents and . The turn was the and river the . The player with pocket kings thought he had spiked a two-outer to win the hand, but had missed the fact that it made the straight for Loui Petrevski. Saab was sent to the exit.
As if playing in a high-profile, high-stakes poker tournament isn't nerve-wracking enough, the players now have to contend with the elements as well. What can only be described as a "funk" has invaded the entirety of the Crown Poker Room. The funk smells vaguely of a mix of rotting cheese, eggs that have been left in the sun for three days, and various unpleasant human body odors. Many a nose has been wrinkled, and several players have pulled their shirts up over their noses to try to block the funk out.
The source of the funk has not yet been determined but the tournament staff are working overtime to figure it out and eliminate it.
It was a clash of young guns on Table 11 when Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Michael "Timex" McDonald collided. The two were all in preflop, with Timoshenko tabling the best hand, , against McDonald's . The flop brought the case king, ; McDonald was drawing dead after the turn fell . He's out, with Timoshenko collecting his bounty and moving up in the counts.
A rampaging Warwick Mirzikinian has jumped out in front of the pack today.
On his way to the chip lead, Mirzikinian had a player shove into his pocket . He was able to turn the pretty situation into a mountain of chips after the board bricked out .
That opponent is just one of the many that the 2008 Australian 2 Card Manila Runner-up has eliminated this morning, on his run to over 20,000 chips.