20th place was a wincer - I caught the hand the preflop where Ilari Sahamies was considering calling Michael Binger's considerable four-bet shove (c.60k into a pot of around that already, blue 5k chips littering the table). He thought for a long time, the table's interest waned, but suddenly perked up again when he made the call. He showed to Binger's . The flop came a spiky , and the turn and river no help ( ). Binger, whom I haven't heard say a word all day, let one expletive slip quietly, and picked up his backpack in the angriest fashion imaginable before striding off.
Ilari stacked the chips without celebration or reaction.
Dan Shak - 155,500
Daniel Alaei - 324,800
Juha Helppi - 69,200
Tony G - 280,000
David Steicke - 406,200
Andrew Feldman - 205,000
William Thorson - 277,500
Eric Haik - 45,200
Dave Ulliott - 140,000
Randy Dorfman - 125,000
John Kabbaj - 157,000
Bertrand Grospellier - 248,000
Anthony Giuetti - 57,000
David Eldar - 86,000
Michael Binger - 86,700
Roberto Romanello - 240,000
Florian Langmann - 414,400
Ilari Sahamies - 265,000
Vanessa Rousso - 38,000
Lev Myrmsky - 400,000
Another tough break for young Andrew Lichtenberg. He lost a big pot with kings against Andrew Feldman's queens earlier in the tournament, and he was just polished off by William Thorson. He got it all in with against Thorson's on a flop, but the river came another to knock him out.
The new Haik-Kabbaj redrawn table looks like this:
William Thorson - 97k
Eric Haik - 45k
Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott - 160k
Randy Dorfman - 130k
John Kabbaj - 134k
Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier - 180k
Anthony Ginetti - 124k
Andrew Lichtenberg - 90k
Eric Haik found himself the short stack in the High Rollers tournament as they redrew for seats having hit the 24 player mark. With just 22k left, he raised half his stack in early position, and the rest soon followed when John Kabbaj raised enough to set him in (the blinds got out of the way).
Kabbaj:
Haik:
It turned round instantly when the flop came , though, with more rags ( )completing the board and giving Haik 45k.
John Kabbaj waited to see if David Eldar would call all-in on the turn of a board patiently. He'd bet 75k (leaving himself just 4k which was irrelevant to the pot but looked funny balanced on four corners of his hand). The pot was around 60k and Eldar really considered it, tapping some chips on the table, staring into the upper middle distance, and generally looking a bit discomfited. He doesn't look to have made many rash decisions in this event, and this time even though he didn't look happy about it he passed. Andrew Feldman suddenly piped up with, "Ace-king of diamonds! John, you had a flush draw." But we'll never know.
Alexander Kuzmin had a pretty tough day, going from shortish to bowl-of-rice, to grain-of-rice. The icing on the cake was the style of his exit though - he moved in on the cutoff for his remaining 12k, called by ElkY on the button and David Steicke on the small blind.
The two callers quickly checked it all the way down: and Steicke immediately showed his two pair with . Just a shadow of a smile crossed the silent Kuzmin's face as he flipped up his !
Maybe tomorrow he'll see the funny side. Short stacked Teltscher spotted an opportunity to ship preflop, unfortunately Randy Dorfman in the big blind woke up with - the last think Teltscher wanted to see up against his . "That's the worst shape. The worst," he admitted to the table. After a lemon-juice-in-papercut on the flop, he was soon drawing dead and taking his leave.