In a blind-on-blind confrontation, Karl Mahrenholz in the big blind and his opponent in the small saw a flop. Mr Small Blind checked and Mahrenholz bet, only for Mr Small Blind to raise. Mahrenholz pushed, the small blind called all in, and they were on their proverbial backs.
Mahrenholz:
Mr Small Blind:
Turn:
River:
Mahrenholz is down to exactly 1,000, and is, we suspect, not long for this tournament.
Sadly we're not all taking the evening off and heading down to the Strip; instead we are conscientiously counting the chips of some of the notable female players in today's event.
Liya Gerasimova: 18,800
Beth Shak: 3,900 with a horrible little Yorkie dog toy thing perched atop her chips
J.J. Liu: 7,900
Sandra Naujoks: 10,200
Mandy Baker: 4,100
Chris Ferguson, short-stacked and distracted by games on his phone for much of the day, has finally bitten the tournament dust. He open-shoved for a mere 1,175 in mid position, and the gent on the cutoff reraised to isolate. They flipped, in at least two senses of the word, and Ferguson was soon to be heading for the $10,000 Mixed event.
Ferguson:
Cutoff:
Board:
"Goodbye," said a not too heartbroken Ferguson. "Mixed games," he declared, rubbing his hands, wished everyone good luck, and wandered off.
Actually no sooner than Hellmuth's stack was established as 9,000 than he managed to drop a few.
A player raised to 525 and Hellmuth made it 1,225 total. A call, and a flop.
Flop:
Both players checked, and moved on to the turn.
Turn:
It checked to Hellmuth who bet 700; his opponent called and they saw a river.
River:
Hellmuth's opponent considered, and then announced, "I'm afraid you'll check, so I'll bet." He wasn't sure how much to bet though, so Hellmuth suggested 2,350. Duly, the gentleman bet 2,350 and Hellmuth called. His opponent flipped over for a flush.
"He called my raise with five-six!" lamented a horrified Hellmuth. "I wanna throw up! He won't last 20 minutes, I'm going to take all his chips."
The next hand Hellmuth raised it up, declaring it a, "steam raise." He took it down on the flop.
Bill Davis: looks like our chip leader on 42,000
Chris Ferguson: not doing well on 3,000
Neil Channing: doing even less well on 2,000
Liya Gerasimova: 16,800
Phil Hellmuth: 9,000
Jeffrey Hakim is up to 26,000 after most fortuitously busting another player with up against the all-in player's . Bink! A queen on the board comes good for Hakim.
"That's Luckbox," pipes up a tablemate as I'm asking Hakim how to spell his name, "With a capital 'W'." This confuses me. "Capital 'L'," he corrects, but the moment is gone.
The official figures currently stand at 1,646 runners, meaning that we have a whopping prize pool of $2,995,720, with $569,199 going to the winner. 171 places pay out.