Over at the featured TV table, I caught the action on the river. The board was . Jakob Paulsen fired out 80,000 on the river and Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad went into the tank. She eventually called. Paulsen showed 9-9 for two pair and Annette_15 held a King. She won the pot with two pair, Kings and fours.
After picking up another pot on the flop, Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad increased her stack to over 700,000.
Gus Hansen raised to 33k preflop, called by Matthew McCullough. The flop came . McCullough checked, and Gus Hansen drew out the pause while he studied his opponent, asking him to count out his remaining chips. "I have 208k," he said.
Hansen stared a bit more, then counted out exactly 208k and pushed it slowly over the line. Eventually, McCullough folded.
"Gus Hansen, you are a sick man," commented Kenny Tran. He didn't deny it, instead, it looked like he was talking to his ipod. On further inspection, it appears that Gus Hansen is continually taking notes on some kind of dictaphone. I asked someone on the rail if they could hear what he was saying and they shrugged, saying, "He mumbles."
His last 35k went in with a timely vs. Terry Cook's . Tran had a bit of a wincing flop: , but the turn and river brought the and bringing his stack up to around 80k.
Three raises preflop between Lamsa and Korsar got the latter all in and called.
Lamsa:
Korsar:
The board came out: ...with a King on the superfluous river as Lamsa, the Day One chip leader, was already shaking hands and heading out from behind the rail, which is thick with spectators.
It took almost one full level of play to bust 10 players. With 22 players remaining, there needs to be 13 more eliminations until a final table is set.
Looking at the current chip counts, it would appear that three of the top four players are on the same table, Mangus Persson, Dominic Kay and Karl Mahrenholz perhaps wishing they were elsewhere as Theo Jorgensen (2nd), William Durkee (3rd) and Abishek Khaitan (4th) command procedures.
If anyone has been affected by the precense of the big stacks, then perhaps it's Dominic. After losing a few meaty pots earlier on, he's been the quietest of the 6 players, but that may simply be due to a complete lack of playable hands.
Terry Cook moved all in pre-flop from middle position and Aleksander Vathne called from the button. Cook turned over and found his hand dominated by Vathne's . The flop was , but the turn was the , filling in a straight for Cook. The river was the and Cook doubled up.