In middle position, Phil Ivey opened to 7,500, and the gentleman on the button three-bet shoved for his last 70,500. The quietly appeared face-up in front of Ivey's stack, and Mr. Opponent said, "I think you got it." He rolled over his , and he needed some help in a hurry to stay alive.
There was none. The board ran , and the set of aces give Ivey the knockout. With it comes another chip increase, and this one pushes him up over the half-million-chip mark and back onto the tail of the chip leader.
With about 70,000 in the pot and a board reading , Lee Nelson moved all in from the big blind and put the pressure on his opponent in the hijack. The latter only had 30,700 remaining, and after tanking for about 90 seconds, he committed them to the pot. Nelson rolled over for trips, and his opponent simply mucked before exiting the tournament area.
Meanwhile, we've noticed that both Jason Gray and Ralph Byrd are absent from the tournaments, and we're confident in saying they've been eliminated.
Maria Ho's Aussie Millions dream is over. She committed the last of her chips on a [x] flop whilst holding queen-ten. The problem was that her opponent held queen-jack, and she failed to improve.
Tom Dwan saw us staring at the precarious level of his stack and then looked up at the digital clock and motioned while saying, "Lucky time!" The clock read 22:22.
He went on to ask where we were headed to next and we answered Deauville for an EPT. "Oooo," he said. "The last time I went to Deauville it cost me a house in Texas!"
Dominik Nitsche failed to find the help needed to recover his tournament and was eliminated by Michael Tureniec. The talented young German came over and told us that he got his last 40,000 in with ace-king and was looked up by Tureniec who held pocket jacks.
Michael Tureniec and Jamie Rosen are very active players, willing to play cards from any position. It came as no surprise to see the Swede open to 5,100 from second position and Rosen three-bet him to 12,700 from the next seat.
Tureniec wasn't done though and four-bet up to 28,600. Rosen called to see the flop and here he did give up, after Tureniec c-bet for 22,500.
We saw Peter Aristidou walking the tournament floor and a quick glance at his former table suggested that he had been eliminated. We asked Aristidou what happened and he explained that he had raised to 5,200 from middle position with and received a call from the player on the button. The big blind then three-bet to 17,500, Aristidou four-bet 45,000, the button folded, and the big blind shipped. Aristidou had about 105,000 behind and called off.
The big blind ended up holding , the same hand as Aristidou, so given the fact that the Australian veteran was eliminated, you just knew it was going to be something nasty. The flop came down with two diamonds, and you can surely guess what happened next.
If you guessed runner-runner diamonds to give the big blind a winning flush, you're right. Aristidou seemed to take it in stride as he went to check on his friends still alive in the tournament.