Gavin Griffin's chip stack has slowly but steadily dwindled over the course of the day. Down to 12,700 chips, he found himself all in with and called by a player who tabled .
Following standard Main Event protocol, the dealer called out "All in and call on Orange 82!" A floor came over to the table and held up play while an ESPN camera got itself into position to film the action.
"Can we just get it over with?" asked an irritated Griffin. "What the ****."
The dealer was finally instructed to run out the board. That board came to give Griffin the rivered gutshot Broadway straight and the double-up. He's now sitting behind 26,000 chips.
After some preflop action, Igor "Jr Parlay" Borukhov bet 2,000 with the board reading with two hearts. According to Borukhov, his opponent and him got in a raising war that found the shorter player all in. Borukhov held for top pair, top kicker, but his opponent was looking at a hefty amount of outs with the for the nut flush draw.
The turn and river both blanked, allowing the pot to be passed to Borukhov, who now has amassed himself 150,000 chips.
It's getting to be the time of night when players start gambling for stacks. Isabelle Mercier's opponent was all in for 20,000 with and called by the slightly-bigger stacked Mercier, who showed down . The board ran out ten-high, , to knock Mercier's opponent out of the tournament.
Brett Richey moved all in for his last 4,500 from the cutoff and the big blind asked for a count before deciding on his action. After about 15 seconds, he called.
Richey showed and his opponent took his time before flipping over his . The board went Richey's way through the turn as the cards fell , but the river changed course, bringing the and giving Richey's opponent the nut flush.
Tables are slowly breaking over here in Brasilia. About every 10-15 minutes another table breaks and the players are relocated to another part of the room. A lot of times last year, the players would break from a table only to be moved over to the Amazon room. The staff this year has kept the players in Brasilia with the plan to move them over once all the tables get broken down here. A few tables were moved to the Amazon room early on, but that has since stopped. It's somewhat like there's two separate tournaments going on.
While we've lost the likes of Liv Boeree, Brandon Cantu, and David "Chino" Rheem throughout the day, Jean-Robert Bellande, Steve Topakas, Gabe Thaler, Jeff Tims, and Alex "Assassinato" Fitzgerald are still going strong. Jamie Roberts and Igor "Jr Parlay" Borukhov have emerged as two of the biggest stacks in the room. Borukhov looks to be the chip leader of the entire event right now with slightly over 150,000 chips. If you remember back to the WSOP Circuit event at Caesars Atlantic City, Borukhov stormed to the chip lead early in that event as well, only to barely eek into the money.
In a heads-up battle, the two blinds saw a flop of in a raised pot. After those first three cards hit the board, both players ended up all in. Allen Bari was in the big blind with . The small blind had Bari slightly covered and totally dominated with . The turn was a useless , and the on the river was no help to Bari either. After working a medium to low stack all day, he's out.
On a flop of , the big blind checked, Jeff Lisandro bet 4,400 from UTG, a middle position player folded and the big blind called. Both players checked the on the turn. When the hit the river, the big blind quickly fired out 10,000. Lisandro called immediately.
The big blind insta-mucked his hand rather than show it down. Lisandro raked in the pot and is now up to 145,000.
The end result of a pot between Scotty Nguyen and the player to his right wasn't that exciting, but the hand itself was interesting enough. With the board showing and sitting in the small blind, Nguyen check-raised the button player's flop bet, adding 6,000 chips on top. The button called.
The turn filled a potential draw. Nguyen, undeterred, bet another 12,000. Again the button called.
The river fell to put a straight on board. Nguyen put 20,000 chips in the middle. His opponent wasn't happy about that bet.
"You got some of that?" Nguyen asked, pointing at the board.
"I've got a straight on the board," his opponent replied. "Ok, I call. You got a nine?"
"No, baby, chop it up." Nguyen showed down and the button showed . It was indeed a chop.
"Why you gotta bluff me like that?" the button asked as Nguyen laughed and took another sip from his Michelob Ultra.
Five levels of play instead of four tonight have led to some larger end-of-night stacks than we've seen over the last two days. Here are a few of the players pulling away from the pack as the evening comes to a close:
Tyler Patterson 165,000
Igor 'Jr Parlay' Borukhov 150,000
Ariel 'DaEvils' Schneller 146,000
Jeff Lisandro 145,000
Marc Naalden 135,000
Chance Kornuth 125,000
Jamie Roberts 120,000