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We didn't quite catch the hand, but Kiril Zahariev has become the latest player to trudge to the payout desk. Sergio Rodriguez Sanchez was stacking up chips as Zahariev departed, and is up to around 650,000.
Rob Hollink might be ducking and diving like a cormorant today, but he couldn't shake Marco Leonzio on a low flop: 
. Leonzio check-raised (28k-66k) only to find Hollink putting in yet another raise, this time to 108k. He made the call, and that pretty much shut off the betting over the 
turn and 
river. Hollink checked the river behind and mucked when Leonzio showed 
.
Team PokerStars pro, Salvatore Bonavena finds himself sat with 855,000 chips after eliminating Morgan Bauer.
Bauer moved all in preflop from the button for a total of 170,000 chips holding 
but found a caller in the shape of Bonavena in the small blind holding 
, a typical coinflip scenario
The 
flop gave Bonavena some outs to the spade flush but the 
on the river was not one of them. However, the 
on the river was one of the Italian's outs and with that the tournament is down to 32 players.
Nicolas Babel found an open spot on the button to get his last 115k in preflop. Melanie Weisner thought only briefly before making the call with 
. Fair enough indeed - Babel held 
. But the board had other ideas than to let the best hand preflop hold up - the board ran out 
and he rises to 230k while she drops to about the same stack.
Kiril Zahariev is skirting disaster after losing a chunk of his moderate stack to Jan Bendik preflop. Zahariev had three bet to 61,000 in late position, but when Bendik four-bet out of the small blind (116k total), Zahariev folded leaving himself just 190,000.
Two hands later and he was the one moving all in on an 
flop, picking up about what he'd lost to Bendik.
We got there on the river of the 
board, just in time to see Melanie Weisner check-calling 57,000 from Emiliano Bono. But we never got to see what Weisner had, as Bono shouted, "YES! YES YES YES!" and turned over 
for a flopped flush and Weisner mucked.
"Nuts. Flop," Bono explained somewhat inaccurately.
Weisner seemed somewhat wearied by the experience, and dropped to 430,000. Bono is now at 500,000 - not bad seeing as he was at just 30,000 or so about an hour ago. Extraordinary.
Kevin MacPhee has eliminated both Kevin Stani and Paul Knebel in the first hand back after the break. This pot rocketed sky-high straight away with an under the gun shove from Stani (c.280k) and a reshove from Knebel (more). It folded to MacPhee, who also announced, "All in," covering them both like a blanket.
MacPhee: 
Knebel: 
Stani:
Flop: 
Turn: 
River: !
A 700k+ pot goes to MacPhee who is now an even more monstrous chip leader with over 2,200,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
1,566,000 | 366,000 |
|
|
1,200,000 | 842,000 |
|
1,022,000 | 152,000 |
|
850,000 | 252,000 |
|
787,000 | 505,000 |
|
785,000 | 15,000 |
|
677,000 | 74,000 |
|
633,000 | 212,000 |
|
619,000 | -13,000 |
|
600,000 | -260,000 |
|
535,000 | 235,000 |
|
503,000 | -47,000 |
|
|
490,000 | 243,000 |
|
482,000 | -278,000 |
|
468,000 | -32,000 |
|
460,000 | -7,000 |
|
420,000 | -18,000 |
|
|
380,000 | 18,000 |
|
|
379,000 | 149,000 |
|
|
357,000 | -43,000 |
|
340,000 | 90,000 |
|
|
331,000 | -35,000 |
|
|
318,000 | 8,000 |
|
290,000 | -70,000 |
|
280,000 | 76,000 |
Level: 20
Blinds: 6,000/12,000
Ante: 1,000
TD Thomas Kremser reckons we'll hit 24 players at the start of Level 22, but the general consensus among the dealers is that we'll get there towards the end of Level 21. The PokerStars Christmas party is due to start at 9pm, so there is a lot at stake.
Back in 15 minutes.
