Johnson Tanks, Clocked, Eliminated

On the last hand before the break, we lost Kyle Johnson in a huge pot.

We only walked up to the river of the {K-Diamonds} {4-Spades} {2-Spades} {9-Spades} {J-Hearts} board in time to see Elio Fox shoving all in with his covering stack. The pot was scrambled, but it looked like there had to be close to 300,000 in the middle. We eyeballed Johnson at 299,000 left in his stack, and he would take a long while agonizing over the decision facing him. He had that "I-don't-want-to-call-but-I-might-have-to" look on his face, and he rubbed his temples as he pondered Fox's shove.

Most of the players had already left the table for their break, and only Dennis Bejedal was still in his seat. From in between the two players, he eventually called the clock on Johnson, and the floorman came and presided over the final minute of Johnson's tournament life. It was well within the rules for Bejedal and nobody seemed to flinch, but it was fairly poor timing to be adding even more pressure to Johnson's decision. About four minutes of the break had elapsed.

About halfway through his clock time, Johnson finally made a reluctant call for all his chips, and the news was not good. Fox showed up {A-Clubs} {A-Spades} , and Johnson flung his cards into the muck and headed for the payout desk, unable to beat the overpair.

With that big pot, Fox has skyrocketed up over 800,000, and that's dangerous news for the rest of this table. They'll have to deal with a man who's on a serious heater with one major title already this month, and he's now in contention for the chip lead here with under 100 players left, too!