After four players limped in, including Musa Gunay from under the gun, David Benyamine raised to 2,800. Only Gunay made the call and the flop came down . Gunay checked and Benyamine fired 3,000. Gunay called.
The turn brought the and both players checked before the hit the river. Gunay fired 10,000 and Benyamine folded.
Van Marcus is now leading the way with a massive stack of 228,000 thanks to a gift from one of his opponents. According to Marcus, this is how the hand went down.
A player opened with a raise to 1,500 before the button flat-called. Marcus was in the big blind and made it 7,000 to go. The original raiser folded, but the button didn't make things so easy for Marcus. He reraised to 15,000 straight. Marcus stuck in another raise to 100,000 in order to put maximum pressure on his opponent knowing he had to play for all his chips.
"F*** it, who gives a s***, I call!" said the player, according to Marcus. He held the and was crushed by Marcus' pocket jacks.
The board ran out and Marcus won the massive pot to push his stack to the front of the pack.
Chino Rheem's pre-flop raise of 1,800 was called by the player in the big blind and the flop came down .
Both players checked, landing the on the turn. The player in the big blind bet 3,000 and Chino raised, making it 8,500 to play. His opponent re-raised all in and Chino folded instantly, slipping to 65,000.
A loud commotion broke out at Table 9 where we found Antonio Esfandiari all in and at risk with against an opponent's .
Sorel Mizzi came over from a nearby table to sweat the hand and when the board ran out , Mizzi and Esfandiari let out a big, "Michael Binger!", as Esfandiari binked the set and held up to boost his stack to about 45,000.
On the board of , Antoine Abou Khalil fired 6,300 into Ran Azor. Azor made the call and the two would see the put trips on the board on the river. Khalil checked and Azor fired 26,400, an all-in bet. Khalil had 38,200 behind and thought about it for a minute before folding his hand. Azor moved up to 57,000 in chips with that pot.
If you're unfamiliar with Azor, maybe it's time you got in the know. Back in April of 2009 when Yevgeniy Timoshenko won the $25,000 WPT Championship, it was Azor who Timoshenko beat heads up. Azor took down $1,446,265 for his finish there. That is the largest (by far) score of his career, but he has had some other nice splashes in poker.
In July of 2008, Azor won a $2,000 side event at the Bellagio Cup IV for $192,945. He also took second in the £1,500 European Championships event in 2009 for £31,050. Azor also finished 10th in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event at this year's WSOP, just missing out on the final table for $31,348. In total, Azor has a hefty $1,729,587 in prize money.