Under the gun plus one, Kevin Eyster came in raising to 25,000, and he found calls from Per Ummer in position and Joe Hachem in the big blind.
Three ways, the flop came , and that brought significant action. Hachem checked, and Eyster continued out with a bet of 48,500. Ummer tanked and folded, and Hachem took his pause. After a bit of a staredown, he announced an all in, and Eyster sunk in his chair a bit. He had about 220,000 chips left, and he shrugged and pushed them all across the line to put himself at risk. The news was not good for the young man:
Hachem:
Eyster:
Two pair was nothing but trouble for Eyster, drawing slim to Hachem's flopped straight.
"How about running eights?" he pleaded, standing from his chair.
Turn:
Hachem grinned. "Come on, don't do that. That's dirty." Any ten, seven, or eight would keep Eyster around, but he could not find one on the river.
"That's my day," he said, pushing his chips toward the former world champ. The two men exchanged pleasantries, and Eyster wished his table luck as he plodded off to the payout desk.
Hachem is on the move today, up to about 800,000 now.
Kevin Eyster has doubled up Kyle Bowker. We didn't see the action but Eyster was on the button and Bowker in the small blind, so we suspect it was a raise-shove-call affair.
Eyster:
Bowker:
Board:
They're at 300,000 apiece after that, but one is on the way up while the other one is going down.
Joe Hachem has doubled up once more after getting all-in on a high board with against Bowker's . The nines were avoided on the turn and river and Hachem now has 480,000, Bowker drops to 320,000.
John Hall just eliminated Peyman Luth after an 800,000 pot resulted from a raising war between the two. Luth was in bad shape with against Hall's and the board came to eliminate him.
We picked up the action on the flop as the dealer put out in the middle of the table. Chino Rheem checked, and Sherif Zacca fired out 64,000 into a pot of about that much. A check-raise came from Chino, about 300,000 and enough to cover Zacca. The latter called off his stack with , and his top pair was in the lead. Rheem turned up , drawing live to the clubs and the jacks left in the deck.
The turn was a blank , and Zacca was standing behind his chair, pacing back and forth in the small space the media gave him. He looked awfully nervous.
River:
Rheem spikes his flush card, dealing the final blow to Zacca's stack. He's out with about 48 players left, and Rheem appears to have taken over the chip lead with that pot. We have him on 1.6 million now, good enough to occupy the top spot on our scoresheet.