With the board reading , I joined the action with Noah Boeken sliding a bet (or perhaps raise) of 11,500 across the felt, which equated to virtually half his stack.
George Shah, meanwhile, took no time in reraising all in, a move that was called equally as quickly by Boeken.
On their backs, and the hands were as follows:
Boeken =
Shah =
Boeken held his breath as the dealer's hand neared the deck, but upon the hitting the felt for the full house, the Dutchman's tensions erupted and he punched the air in frustration.
As the academic arrived on the river, Boeken continued to shake his head in dismay, part ruing his misfortune and part trying to convince himself that he could have seen a cheap turn.
Whilst the Dutchman is down to the felt with 6,000, Shah is now rubbing his hands with glee with a meatalicous 60,000 in chips.
Alan Vinson has doubled up his micro-stack to 6,900. All in on his big blind with coinflipping against an opponent's , Vinson's hand held up all the way and hit an unnecessary set on the river for good measure as the board came down .
Vinson then proceeded to double up again, and is currently not quite out of the danger zone but certainly more comfortable on 17,300.
After nurturing a short-stack for a round, Noah Boeken finally bit the dust with versus the of Neil Channing, all in on a flop.
A harmless turn and river later and the Dutchman was gone, an "unlucky" consolatory comment from Channing and a congratulatory tap of the table from Boeken marking the end of the hand.
It appears as though Ayaz Mahmood is in with a good shout of taking the chip lead into day two - he's currently hovering around the 120,000 mark and in seemingly confident mood.
He didn't receive any action on his last hand though, the blinds folding to his preflop raise of 4,200. Mahmood showed
Michael Binger looks to be our new chip leader after eliminating Tom Werthmann in 65th place.
On the turn of a board, a player in late position checked to Werthmann in the cutoff who bet 4,500, only for Binger to raise to 14,500 on the button. The late position checker sensibly got out of the way, and now Werthmann went over the top of Binger for 32,500. After some deliberation Binger called.
Werthmann:
Binger:
River: a harmless
With a clap of triumph, Binger knocks out Werthmann and takes the chip lead on 148,000. We are now hand for hand until the bubble bursts.
With just ten minutes remaining on the clock before the end of play, we are still waiting for someone to snap up that unwanted bubble spot. And it would appear as though the players are as keen as us to see it burst, the many short stacks seemingly have ants in their pants as they pace around the card room hoping another man will fall.
Still we have no bubbler, but one man in some very hot water is Peter Tran. He and Davood Mehrmand got their chips in preflop, Tran holding A-Q and Mehrmand holding A-K. A king on the board sealed it, and Davood doubled up to 68,500. Tran only just covered him, and is now left with a feeble 2,000 -- he's going to have to get very lucky to recover from this one.
Even a passing announcer made that horse noise with his mouth at the prospect of a long hand-for-hand encounter, it could take one hand, it could take several.