Matt Graham raised from early position to 1,025 before a player in middle position reraised to 3,200. A young woman behind the reraising called and then action folded to Justin "BoostedJ" Smith in the big blind. Smith took his time and then put in a four-bet to 10,600. Graham then folded, but the next player that made it 3,200 called. The young woman was next up and she moved a tall stack of chips into the middle and was all in. Smith called off his stack and the player in between them folded.
Smith tabled two kings -- -- and was ahead of his opponent's pocket jacks -- .
The board ran out and Smith made a full house to win the big pot. He was all in for just under 22,000 and now has nearly 60,000 total.
Phil Hellmuth has finally arrived and like a homing beacon has attracted all of the tv cameras in the building. Daniel Negreanu is only a few tables away and keeps running over between hands to discuss terms of a prop bet.
Negreanu started out offering Hellmuth 8:1 against Hellmuth winning a bracelet in a non-hold'em even at this year's WSOP. Phil countered with 10:1 and Negreanu accepted. Now they're arguing over how much to wager.
Sitting quietly at Hellmuth's table, Kathy Liebert piped up, "What odds to I get?" "You?" laughed Negreanu. "35:1." Negreaunu's way too smart to bet against Kathy.
A player in early position opened to 1,200, and in the cutoff, Shane Schleger made it 3,600 to go. Action folded back to the original raiser, who asked Schleger how much he had behind. About 22k. The guy threw out three brown 10,000 chips.
"I have no idea what those are," said Schleger. He took a long moment to consider putting his tournament life at risk, finally folding face up.
"Nice laydown," said his opponent.
"Never laid that hand down in my life! In my life!" joked Schleger.
We can't find J.J. Liu or David Benyamine. It seems both are early casualties.
As previously noted, Phil Hellmuth has arrived. With a 30,000-chip starting stack, he's not really much worse off for having missed the first five levels.
Dennis Phillips seems to be resting his eyes in between hands at one of the outer tables.
Andrew Brown's stack, which had climbed as high as 90,000, is all the way back down to 40,000. He check-raised the turn on a board, then bet 15,000 on the river. His missed a spade flush but made bottom two pair; it was no good against .
"The way you were doing all that talking," said Brown's opponent, "I didn't think you were bluffing."
"Your read was right," Brown replied. But that was little consolation for his diminished stack.
With between 9,000 and 10,000 chips in the middle, the board read . Yevgeniy Timoshenko checked to his opponent, who fired all in for 2,500. Timoshenko couldn't make the call and folded his hand, dropped back to 37,000.
Amanda Baker raised to 950 preflop and was called by only the player in the big blind. The flop came down and the big blind checked. Baker checked behind.
The turn card was the and the big blind checked. Baker fired 1,200 and then her opponent check-raised to 3,200. Baker thought about it and then made the call.
The river was the and the big blind fired 6,200. Baker thought about her decision again for a little bit and then put out the chips for the call. Her opponent held his hand as if he was going to muck and Baker tabled the . The player seemed surprised that Baker called with her hand and he mucked his. She's now up to 58,000 chips.
We don't have an official announcement of numbers yet, but the big board in the main poker room has been fixed at 872 for several levels now. It's a safe guess that number will be the final tally of entrants, a very impressive showing for the inaugural tournament of NAPT Season 1.