Showdowns Down

The number of hands reaching showdown, or including tantalising glimpses of mucked or winning hands, has reached a tournament low at the beginning of this level. Patrik Antonius has been busy as a bee, raising or re-raising preflop in four out of seven of the last hands. He just took both blinds from Jeff Buffenbarger, who remarked, "I look down at A-6 and it seems pretty good when you see who's raising." The Finnish overachiever continues to build his towering stacks.

Elsewhere Isabelle Mercier is prepared to put Joey Lovelady all in on a board of {10-Spades}

, after he'd called her preflop raise in the big blind, and her 5k flop bet. When she quickly fired 15k on the turn, he thought for a good couple of minutes and let it go, leaving himself under 20k to play with.

One hand saw some hole cards - they came to light with Eric Joergensen holding {Q-Diamonds}