A player in middle position opened with a raise, and Greg Raymer called from the cutoff. Ted Lawson followed suit from the button, and it was three handed to the flop.
It brought . The raiser continued out with a bet, and bot opponents called. When the hit the turn, the aggressor slowed down, and Raymer took control with a bet. Lawson raised it up, forcing the raiser out. Raymer wasn't going anywhere though, as he three-bet it. Lawson came over the top again with the capping raise, and Raymer called. The river was the . Raymer fired again, drawing another raise from Lawson. Raymer yielded, opting to flat call this time.
Lawson tabled for the nut full house. Raymer couldn't show the quads that were required to beat that, and he slipped his cards into the muck.
After that exchange, Raymer has slipped to 28,000, while Lawson has chipped up to 44,000 in the early going.
The number of registrants for this event is ticking its way upward slowly. When play began, there were less than 100 on the board. The number currently sits at 144, and a handful seem to be joining us every time we look back at the clock. Registration will be open for another 75 minutes.
In case we couldn't tell before, Mike the Mouth is in the room. He's seated a few tables away from us in the middle of the room, but his happy feet didn't keep him in his chair for long. He wandered over to Table 242 (right near us), and found Gavin Smith involved in a pot. Smith mentioned something about table mate Ted Forrest calling three bets on the previous hand with marginal holdings.
"You have to understand something about Ted Forrest," said Mike, practically yelling. "Ted Forrest is sometimes like really, really good. And sometimes he's not all there. Like me."
As he walked back toward his own seat, he looked over his shoulder and yelled, "Hey Ted, can we have a last longer on this one?!"
Last year's runner-up in this event, Greg Jamison, has just scooped an early pot. The turn had just been dealt when we caught up to the action giving us a board. Jamison led out from the small blind and received two callers before the river came .
Jamison led out once more and managed to hang on to one of the players for a call and then scooped the pot when he showed for a full house.
As we continue to scan the room, the list of pros in the field is far too long to list here. Check out our Chip Counts page to see everyone we're tracking so far today.
Something tells me it might be Jeff Madsen's birthday today. He has around ten balloons tied to the back of his chair with Happy Birthday printed on them. Let's see if the poker gods go lenient on him!
As expected, this event has attracted a high proportion of international pros. At first sweep of the room, we have Scotty Nguyen, David Steicke, Annie Duke, Greg Raymer, Scott Clements, Bill Gazes, Ted Lawson, Sammy Farha, Barry Greenstein, and Jeff Madsen, just to name a small few.
Table 243 is the early front runner for Table of Death. It includes, Andy Black, Scotty Nguyen, John D'Agostino, and Marcel Luske.