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The Round of 32 play in the Spades and Clubs brackets has ended with eight players, including four WSOP Main Event winners and one runner-up, advancing to the Sweet 16.
The match-ups for the next round will be:
Chris Moneymaker vs. Erik Seidel
Peter Eastgate vs. Jamie Gold
Scotty Nguyen vs. Gabe Kaplan
Jason Mercier vs. Phil Laak
The producers claim that cards will be in the air within ten minutes.
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As we prepare for the start of play in the Round of 32 for players from the Diamonds and Hearts brackets, we thought it time to give you another lay of the land.
Our feature table will be occupied by Phil Hellmuth and Annette Obrestad while the outside tables, in clockwise order, will hold:
Chris Ferguson vs. Dennis Phillips
Jennifer Harman vs. Jerry Yang
Paul Wasicka vs. Gus Hansen
Doyle Brunson vs. Don Cheadle
Barry Greenstein vs. Sammy Farha
Darvin Moon vs. Annie Duke
Allen Cunningham vs. Eli Elezra
Players are being called to the stage for a group photo and we expect play to begin within 10 minutes.
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The start of each bracket is like a small party for the players as they wander the set to chat and joke with each other. Some of the things we saw and heard over the past few minutes include:
A woman passing out cards promoting Jerry Yang's upcoming biography, "All in from Laos to Las Vegas: The Jerry Yang Story".
Annie Duke joking with Doyle Brunson about Don Cheadle's executive look. "Are you intimidated by his outfit?" Annie asked before Cheadle piped up, "I did it just for you."
Tournament sponsor GoDaddy.com passing out neon green baseball caps to audience members.
Jennifer Harman bouncing around the room, hugging fellow high-stakes player Eli Elezra and joking with Doyle Brunson.
Cards will be in the air in just a couple of minutes, so stick around.
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This is an amazingly quiet tournament room right now. It doesn't appear that any of players - at any of the tables - are talking with each other.
In fact, Jerry Yang just won a massive pot not 10 feet away from us, and neither he nor Jennifer Harman said a word during the entire hand.
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Cheadle all dressed up with no place to go
We have our first victim in the Hearts-Diamonds bracket. On a flop of , a very classily dressed Don Cheadle got his chips in the middle as the short stack against Doyle Brunson. Cheadle had a flush draw, ; Brunson had top pair with . Cheadle never improved, allowing Brunson to close out the match and advance to the Sweet 16.
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An ITM Phillips is all smiles.
We've lost one of our previous NBC Heads-Up champions. Chris Ferguson got his shot stack in on the turn of a board that developed . Dennis Phillips made the call with ; he had to fade Ferguson's up-and-down straight draw with . He did when the river paired the board a harmless .
Ferguson smiled, shook Phillips' hand, and departed the set for good. Phillips will be back later for a Sweet 16 match.
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Phil couldn't beat anything but a pure bluff
Phil Hellmuth went into the tank for more than five minutes after Annette Oberstad either bet or raised (we're not really sure) on a board of .
Hellmuth announced that he "Can't beat anything but a pure bluff," but refused to muck his hand. After being put on the clock by the producers, Hellmuth finally called and was eliminated after Annette showed pocket jacks for a straight. Hellmuth's flashed a nine in the hole for a pair of nines, not nearly enough to beat Obrestad's straight.
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Jerry Yang advances
Jen Harman took a big hit to her chip stack early in the match against Jerry Yang. Down to just 6,600, she moved all in pre-flop with . Yang called with and closed out the match by pairing tens on a board of .
Harman had a few words for one of Yang's supporters on the rail as she was departing the set. That person had jumped off of the rail earlier when Yang won a huge pot in the match, shouting that he knew exactly what Yang had in his hand.
When Harman expressed her displeasure with the supporter's behavior, he told Harman that he wasn't trying to be disrespectful to her. But Harman pressed her point, to which Yang's supporter replied, "I don't care what you have to say."
Harman then said something inaudible before departing the set. Yang's supporter shouted at her back, "No, you f*** off."
![[user108095]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
and was well ahead of Yang's 
. She improved her lead on a flop of 
and Yang couldn't catch up as the board finished 
.
; Brunson had top pair with 
. Dennis Phillips made the call with 
; he had to fade Ferguson's up-and-down straight draw with 
.
.
.
