Carlos Mortensen has just taken a nice stud pot off Steve Billirakis. Mortsensen completed before Billirakis led the action on fourth. Mortensen then took over on fifth, sixth and seventh with Billirakis calling him down.
Mortensen: () /
Billirakis: (X-X-X) /
Mortensen made a flush and collected the pot to move to 164,000. Billirakis is back down to 125,000.
Greg "FBT" Mueller didn't want to waste three good hours of poker time this afternoon. Since Day 2 of this event didn't begin until 3:00, Mueller arrived at the Rio at noon to start the $2,500 Mixed Hold'em tournament. The limit specialist is running back and forth between Pavilion and Amazon not that both events are running simultaneously. He was on the ropes in the mixed tournament, but he's since built back up. Follow his progress in Event #44 here. Mueller also has a decent stack here, meaning it could be a long day of commuting for FBT.
Eugene Katchalov completed the action on third street with Al Barbieri making the call. Katchalov fired again on fourth and fifth streets, before Barbieri led the action on sixth. On the river, both players checked it down.
Katchalov: (X-X-X) /
Barbieri: () /
Barbieri makes a seventy-six to collect the pot as Katchalov mucked. Katchalov is at 86,000 while Barbieri is making a surge towards the chip lead with 159,000.
Dave Baker: (X-X) / / (X)
Marco Traniello: (X-X) / / (X)
We caught up with the action when Traniello opened with a bet on sixth street, and Dave "not Bakes" Baker called, leaving himself a single 100 chip behind. Traniello bet again on seventh, and Baker looked at his down card and folded, preserving that single chip.
Not surprisingly, Baker was out before we could type this hand. In the last hour, we've gone from two David Bakers to none. At least we've only gone from two Traniellos to one. Marco Traniello is up to 110,000.
Sorel Mizzi raised from under the gun before Cyndy Violette re-raised from the small blind. Mizzi put in the four-bet for his last chips and Violette made the call.
Mizzi:
Violette:
The flop landed and Violette took the lead with two pair, but the turn and river gave Mizzi a wheel for the scoop.
"Unbelievable!" exclaimed Violette, "That's such a sick beat."
Violette is back down to 11,000 with Mizzi at 22,000.
The players are now taking their first twenty-minute break of the day. Interestingly, we lost roughly 60 players in that two hour session, which is only a handful less than we lost throughout all of the day yesterday.