Mohammed Hassan has moved several rungs up the chip ladder, spectacularly propelled by some timely pocket rockets.
His opponent called a raise with K-Q, and found himself most pleased with the A-Q-Q flop. Hassan, however, also seemed rather happy. A little less happy perhaps with the second ace on the turn, Hassan's opponent nevertheless got his chips in, and was horrified to see that Hassan was holding not one ace for a bigger house but two for quads. "Sick," was all our opponent had to say. Sick, indeed.
As he rose from his seat, Peter Singleton was seemingly lacking confidence and perhaps sensing the worst as his came up against an inferior . But he was right to feel negative, as the board came a teasing to send him home.
"Well played," congratulated Singleton on departure.
According to Peter Singleton, he's currently playing on what he described as a "cartoon table." "Which character are you?" I inquired. "Hmm," he pondered, "I think I'm the Wily E Coyote... and I'm up against eight Road Runners."
As Peter mused over frustrating times, I grabbed a few chip counts from the Road Runners:
Jim Reid -- 16,000
Daniel Negreanu -- 8,500
Simon La Thangue -- 8,875
Michel Abecassis -- 33,500
Richard Wheatley -- 12,500
Pete Linton, playing his usual aggressive and unpredictable game, seems to be somewhat flummoxing Karsten Johansen, among others. With a fair few chips in the middle preflop, Johansen checked to Linton on the flop, and Linton promptly made it 1,850 to go from underneath his baseball cap. Johansen, with a hesitant hand and an unsure expression, passed his cards back to the dealer.
Another table has broken, and from an initial 191 runners who started today with hopes of the first WSOPE bracelet adorning their wrists, 134 are still competing through level four. Thor Hansen is one of those out in the last 10 minutes, and literally while attaching said photo of the Norwegian poker legend, another exit was occurring two seats along from him - that of Ed Rogers, whose was no good all in preflop against as so often is the case.
Some counts from table ex-Hansen (also broken during the time it took to type this, and I'm using all ten fingers - the pace has really picked up):
Will Brewin - 5,900
Luis Nunes - 3,200
Jonathan Weekes - 7,225
Yevgeniy Timoshenko - 12,600
Simeon Tsonev - 7,350
Last year's unfortunate main even bubble boy Jeff Buffenbarger survived a hairy moment. He was all in for 1,925 with versus on a flop, but dodged numerous outs as the turn and river came a raggy respectively.
'Michigan' Jeff, as he is often known, now has around 5,500.
Garrulous Brit Stuart Lloyd has suffered some kind of disaster but it hasn't quieted him down any. He moved all in for his pittance preflop with and found a caller in Dahe Liu with . "Is that all you've got?" said Lloyd. "I'm making a comeback here." And indeed he did, of sorts -- the cards came out to give him two pair. "Flush," he announced for some reason, and raked in his grand total 500 or so chips. "Happy days."
Although he delighted his fellow players with his cheeky banter and upbeat humor, Layne Flack is now livening up the rail after running into aces. The bullets were raised up preflop, and with one caller in the middle, Flack decided to squeeze by pushing all in preflop with . Obviously he received a sharp call, and although he improved his hand with a second king, it wasn't quite enough as the aces held up.
Early pace setter Simon La Thangue has suffered a recent setback and is now back on 11,300 as a result.
I didn't catch the preflop action, but with a chunky pot waiting patiently in the middle and short-stacked lady all in, La Thangue and Michel Abecassis proceeded to create a sidepot of their own.
With the board reading , La Thangue check-called a bet of 1,500 on the turn, as well as 2,200 on the river, but found his pipped on the turn by the Frenchman's .
But not all the chips were going to the Abacus, as the all-in lady turned over for a split pot.