Paul Parker raised from the cutoff and Danny Smith re-popped from the button. "Oh good," said Parker as James Dempsey approached the table, "You're just in time to see me double up again."
It was not to be, though -- he got the last of his chips in on the turn, and was good -- but the river binked for Smith, and Parker is bust.
Remember how I said each elimination takes on more and more significance as we get closer and closer to the bubble? We just lost a player in 47th place (45 paid). He stood up from his seat and let fly an f-bomb. Then a second f-bomb, a little louder. Then he shouted a third and started moving towards the exit. About halfway to the door he let fly a vehement, very loud f-bomb.
Hand-for-hand play did not take long at all. The terminally short-stacked Marsha Waggoner called all in for 5,000 after Patrice Boudet opened with a raise. No one else came into the pot, leaving Boudet alone to try to eliminate Waggoner.
Boudet:
Waggoner:
Boudet immediately flopped a low, , while Waggoner made only a pair of fives. Boudet's low was partially counterfeited by the turn , which gave him a live deuce, but it also gave him a better high hand than Waggoner, who was playing a live eight for low. The river paired sixes. Boudet's aces and sixes were good enough to take the high half and his live deuce took the low half to boot Waggoner out of the tournament on the bubble.
It's a pretty standard feature of poker tournaments. Play tightens up and slows down as the money bubble approaches, with the short stacks fighting to squeak into the cash. Then as soon as the bubble bursts, they start flinging their chips around with reckless abandon.
We already have our first two eliminations. Adrienne Rowsome was eliminated by Ben Gold in 45th place. That's Rowsome's third (and final) update on PokerNews for the day.
Paul Darden was crippled and all in for 1,000 preflop. He was taken care of by Patrice Boudet, who turned a full house with a pair of threes in his hand. Darden finished in 44th place.
Have to say, the bustouts have been rather more even-paced than one might expect, given the shortness of certain stacks. It's like no-one wants to go home. We would venture at this point that we are not going to get anywhere near a final table tonight.