The third and final Day 1 flight is in the books and 44 hopefuls made it through to the next stage of the tournament. At 12:30 p.m. local time tomorrow afternoon they’ll join the 72 others who survived flights on Days 1a and 1b and begin playing down to a final table.
2005 WSOP Main Event Champ and Team PokerStars player Joe Hachem didn’t disappoint the many fans that came out to support him throughout the day, as he’s made it through to Day 2 with 54,400 in chips. Australian pro Michael “Sticky” Guttman amassed the largest chip stack of all Day 1c players, though he only ranks 13th amongst the entire Day 2 field of 116 players. Guttman will return tomorrow with 162,500 in chips.
The stage has been set for a doozy of a Day 2, as we’ll see the likes of Hachem, Scotty Nguyen, Gary Benson, Lee “Final Table” Nelson, Leo Boxell and Terrence Chan mix it up with a plethora of talented locals and Internet qualifiers. We’ll be your eyes and ears reporting live from the heart of the action inside the Star City poker room and we hope you’ll join us!
On the verge of the close of today's play Carter Gill has raked in an enormous pot, much to the excitement of the large gallery hanging over the rail.
With the board reading , John Kim bets 10,000 into the sizeable pot and Gill makes the call.
The arrives on the river and Kim bets out enough to put Gill all in. However the decision was an easy one for Gill as he insta-calls with the nut flush with . Kim is disappointed as he mucks .
That concludes play for this evening, and with this massive pot, Carter Gill is sure to be among the chip leaders. Stay tuned to our coverage as we will have the final chip counts for all remaining players very shortly!
With the board of , Bruno Portaro is loving the action in front of him from two opponents holding . One opponent finds himself all in with while the other player manages to get away from his . The turn and river are blanks and Bruno Portaro is now up with the leaders at around 170,000 in chips.
Joe Hachem is trying to get busy late in the session as players around him start to tighten and think about tomorrow. However it appears that every time he enters a pot he is meeting resistance and is being forced to make plenty of laydowns.
Holding , Carter Gill makes a standard opening raise to 4,000. His opponent re-raises to 12,000 and Gill pops it up once again, this time to 24,000 chips. When his opponent moves all-in Gill is disgusted as he flings his cards into the muck. However he is distraught when his opponent shows the same hand with !
The flop of lit up the evening for Guy Mosel as he snuck another peek at his hole cards of , giving him the nuts with the broadway straight. When the turn brought a repeat king, Mosel got the action he was looking for as John Kim had made trips with his . The river blanked and Mosel raked in a pot worth 80,000 in chips to storm to the tournament chip lead with in excess of 160,000 chips!
Mitch Jones must've been delighted to see an opponent open shove from under-the-gun while he was short-stacked and sitting with pocket queens. Jones was the lone caller and at the showdown, his opponent tabled pocket nines.
The board filled out and Jones' queens held up to win the pot and 34,000 in chips.
Guy Mosel had two players all in on the flop of . Mosel didn't have any hearts but held to have the lead over his opponent's and . The turn brought a repeat and the river the and Mosel's queens hold up to ship a 110,000 pot his way!
Emad Tahtouh and Bruno Portaro saw a flop of and all the money went into the middle:
Tahtouh:
Portaro:
Portaro's pocket aces held the lead but Tahtouh was praying for a repeat jack or a spade to stay alive.
The turn of and river of , meant Bruno Portaro's aces took down the pot to eliminate popular Australian poker professional Emad Tahtouh from the tournament.