It was looking close there for a while but Tournament Director Tab Duchateau has reported that we've exceeded the total number of entrants to hit the guarantee. It's still not official, but the reported number is 299 for today for a total of 414 entrants. Once we have the official numbers, we'll post them along with the prize pool and payout information right here.
Kevin Grabel, one of the four players who chopped Event 1, led out for a bet of 3,550 into a pot of around 6,000 on a board of . DJ MacKinnon called, and the river was the .
Grabel knuckled, and MacKinnon tanked for a bit before plopping 7,800 down in front of him. Grabel studied the bet, reached into his stack, and made the call.
MacKinnon mucked - it looked like the two were politely disagreeing about whether or not MacKinnon should show, but their conversation was inaudible - and Grabel showed for tens and fives.
Kenneth Lind fired out a bet on a flop of , an opponent called, and the 2013 WSOP Seniors Championship Winner led out for another 15,000 after the turn produced the . Without much thought, his opponent reached for three blue T5,000 chips and flicked them forward.
The river was the man with the ax (), and Lind tanked for a bit.
"OK," he sighed. "I check."
His opponent opened his cards, signifying a check, and revealed for two pair. Lind showed , pipping the player, and raked in the pot.
There was a commotion going on right in front of the PokerNews Live Reporting table and when we go to check it out we hear one player saying "Oh my God, are you ****ing kidding me?" while another player is saying "sorry buddy."
The board showed and sitting in front of the OMG player is for a flopped set that turned into 9's full of Queens. Chris Hitt was the other player... the one saying "sorry buddy"... and he had for flopped top pair that turned into two pair on the turn and improved to a full house on the river.
"I felt it coming," the excited Hitt said as he stacked his chips.
Frank Toscano was assembling chips to fire out a bet on a flop of , and he was literally beaten into the pot by his opponent, partypoker Team Pro Jamie Kerstetter. She tossed out 2,500 before he could even drop it in front of him, and he awkwardly returned the chips to his stack. He then brought them forward once more, dropping them down.
The turn was the , Toscano fired another 2,500, and Kerstetter moved all in for 10,075. Toscano fumbled a few more chips, then called.
Toscano:
Kerstetter:
Both players held flush draws, but Kerstetter had the ace and a meaningless pair of sixes and Toscano also had a straight draw. The river didn't give Toscano a straight, but the gave him a pair of jacks to win the hand and eliminate Kerstetter.
Tony Dunst opened from the hijack to 800 and received three callers, including Sean Wallace out of the big blind. The flop came and it was checked to Dunst who made it 2,000 to go. The players sitting on the button and small blind called while Wallace folded.
The turn was the and the player in the small blind checked, as did Dunst. The player on the button was having none of it and bet 4,300 leading to two folds.
Besides being a part of the World Poker Tour broadcast team, Dunst is also an accomplished poker player with over one million dollars in reported live tournament winnings as well as being very successful online prior to Black Friday. Dunst tweeted earlier a reminder about today being the anniversary of Black Friday: