Spaniard Luis Rufas has just had a touch of fortune after getting his money in drawing very thinly against his French opponent, Candido Gonçalves.
Rufas check-raised all-in on a flop reading an was instantly called by Gonçalves, and with the cards on their backs it was easy to see why.
Rufas: for two pair
Gonçalves: for a flopped straight
Gonçalves looked like a dead cert to eliminate Rafas but the turn was the to give Rufas a full house. No miracle river for Gonçalves and Rufas doubles up to around 640,000 whilst Gonçalves still has close to 2,400,000
Georgios Skotadis makes it 72,000 from the cut off and Kent Lundmark three-bet from the button to the tune of 185,000. Skotadis counted out a huge four-bet and Lundmark shoved all-in - Skotadis called.
Skotadis:
Lundmark:
Skotadis rose to his feet while Lundmark remained motionless in his seat.
The Dealer shuffled the flop and you could see a Queen as he turned the three cards over.
"Vamos!" shouted Skotadis.
Then the flop revealed itself
"Vamos! Vamos!" shouted Skotadis.
The turn and river changed nothing and Skotadis has doubled up.
It folded around to Jesus Cortes Lizano in the small blind, who went all in. Georgios Skotadis thought about only briefly before calling.
Lizano:
Skotadis:
"Was it a tough call?" asked Lizano, clearly thinking that Skotadis' pause had been a kind of slowroll.
"You know, I don't like this situation," Skotadis told him, "If it's 50-50."
It wasn't 50-50, but sometimes the worse hand wins.
Board:
"See, was that a tough call for you?" the jocular Skotadis asked Lizano as the latter doubled up with a flush; he was still maintaining that he'd thought that Lizano was pushing with a pair. "You know what, two flips in a row and you're meant to lose one. So yeah, it was a tough call."
Lizano's up to 900,000, Skotadis down to 1.3 million.
Roman Makhlin shoved from the small blind and the big blind didn't fancy it; he shoved from the button next hand as well and again, got no takers.
He didn't bother with the cutoff, but the hand after that he pushed for the third and final time from the hijack. This time Kent Lundmark in the cutoff made the call.
Makhlin:
Lundmark:
Board:
With that, we're down to 16 players and it's time for a redraw.
Nobody is entirely sure exactly what happened, but this is what we know:
- Jesus Cortes Lizano came back from the break and immediately announced that he had too many chips. Not too few - too many. He was meant to have around 900,000, but actually had around 1.3 million. He is our new hero in the press room.
- It was then found that Shander de Vries had too few chips.
- Candido Goncalves was briefly roped into the debate when someone suggested that he might have too many chips as well. But after reconstructing all the pre-break action, it was decided that he was OK after all.
- A long intermission followed, during which time TD Thomas Kremser heard the testimonies of de Vries, Lizano, the rest of the table and various dealers and media. There was at no point any suggestion that there had been any sneakiness going on; rather it seems that while the stacks were being moved around in the redraw, some chips accidentally ended up in the wrong stacks.
- It was eventually decided to give Lizano's extra chips to de Vries and everyone was happy.