Mike Matusow opened for 11,500 and Shawn Keller made the call from middle position. Both players checked the flop. The turn came the and Matusow led out for 16,000. Keller potted to 75,000 and Matusow moved all-in for 93,000 total. Keller called.
"What do you have? The ace-queen with the ace of spades?" asked Matusow.
Keller turned over that very hand, while Matusow showed .
The river was the and Matusow notched the double-up, increasing his stack to 250,000. Keller is down to 155,000.
We've lost a couple of Team PokerStars Pros recently, with both Arnaud Mattern (France) and John Duthie (England) hitting the rail shy of the cash.
Still alive from Team PokerStars are Noah Boeken (Netherlands) and Sandra Naujoks (Germany). Boeken currently has 240,000 and is hovering just below the top 10. Naujoks has 165,000 at the moment -- a little below average, putting her in the middle of the pack.
Alexander Kuzmin opened with a bit-more-than-minimum raise to 10,500 from early position, then Kirill Rabtsov reraised to 30,000. Mike Matusow then reraised it to 85,000, forcing folds back around to Kuzmin who also got out. Rabtsov called with his remaining chips.
Rabtsov showed and Matusow . "It's a coin flip," cracked Matusow.
Then came the flop -- . Suddenly Matusow had gone from way behind to way ahead. The turn was the and the river the , and Rabtsov was eliminated.
Noah Boeken, Mikael Thuritz, Nam Le and Allen Kessler all saw a flop. The action checked to Boeken who bet 30,000 from the button. Thuritz re-potted all-in for 118,000, Le and Kessler folded, and Boeken called all-in.
Boeken
Thuritz
The turn was safe for Boeken, the , but the table erupted when the hit the river, giving Thuritz the bigger boat! Say it with me: SO SICK.
Thuritz is up to 290,000 while Boeken was left with 90,000.
A series of raises between Shawn Keller and Alexander Kuzmin had gotten much of their respective stacks in the middle prior to a flop. The little Keller had left subsquently went in, thus creating about a quarter million-chip pot. Kuzmin had and Keller , meaning Keller was the favorite to win the hand and survive.
The turn was the , and Keller was still good. But the river brought the , pairing Kuzmin and knocking Keller out about a dozen spots shy of the money.
We came up to this hand before the flop with 20,000 already in the middle. Valdemar Kwaysser raised to 40,000 and Mike Matusow reraised to 200,000. Kwaysser called off the 65,000 he had behind.
Kwaysser
Matusow
Kwaysser's eights held up on the queen-high board and he doubled to 247,000. Matusow was left with 246,000.
Dan Smith staked his tournament life on pocket jacks in a pre-flop all-in against Vitaly Lunkin, who showed pocket aces. Smith found no help on the board and hit the rail just short of the money.