Tournament director Danny McDonagh has just made an extraordinary offer to the players in the rebuy tournament.
The conditions are as follows:
The players at the table that registers the most rebuys this afternoon will draw a high-card for a special prize. The will, McDonagh promised, will receive "a small dinner voucher."
In a couple of recent big clashes, Jonny "Yoyo" Vincent found a double up when his pocket queens double through against his opponent's pocket jacks. Jonny is progressing well and has close to 8,000 chips.
On a nearby table Van Marcus loved the action when the money went into the middle when he held pocket aces. His opponent flipped pocket kings, and Van tossed two thousand dollar chips into the middle saying "I rebuy in advance" as he anticipated an ugly bad beat was one the way. However the board bricked out and Van jumped to around 6,000 in chips.
Despite there only being 11 minutes left in the rebuy period, players are still buying into the tournament and filling the empty seats. Popular online pro Kevin "BeL0WaB0Ve" Saul just took his seat, along with John Murphy, who arrived a bit earlier. Lee "Final Table" Nelson and Roy Winston have also taken their seats in the Crown Poker Room.
We've reached the end of level two, which means the rebuy period is officially over. Before players leave their seats they have the option to purchase a single rebuy which costs $1,000 for 1,500 in chips, or a double rebuy which will get them 3,000 chips for $2,000, regardless of their chip stacks.
We'll get you some updated chip counts after the dust settles.
The players are back from the break and play has recommenced with the blinds now at 50/100.
Play should now start to resemble a normal poker tournament as Jim Sachindis was overheard to comment "We can start playing properly now. No more mucking around!"
Josh "JJProdigy" Field has been spotted at table 32 of the rebuy tournament, and this, we believe, is the first photograph ever published of this infamous online poker player.
Field attained legendary status as an online poker player, both for his impressive track record and for his involvement in a cheating scandal that occurred on February 12th, 2006 in the $500,000 Guaranteed Tournament on Party Poker.
Field won the tournament, but under a different screen name: “ABlackCar.” Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't have been a problem, because Party Poker allows players to change their screen names periodically to help them maintain anonymity. In this case, however, the JJProdigy account was also registered in the tournament and Field was accused and found guilty of multi-accounting. His account was then frozen and the money in it seized. He was just 16-years-old at the time of the incident.
Field was also banned from playing at PokerStars, who also went as far as to ban him from their live events, specifically the PokerStars Carribean Adventure. He has been given the green light to play in the 2008 Aussie Millions and is expected to cause quite a stir. Having just celebrated his 18th birthday, this will be Field's first ever live event.
Brandon Schaefer has just eliminated Billy "The Croc" Argyros from today's event. "The Croc" had his money in good with a set of the flop but Schaefer ran him down with his rivered flush.