Team PokerStars Pro Dag Palovic moved all in preflop with a slightly random looking pine cone placed on top of his chips. Tamas Lendvai was in the big blind and asked for a count.
It was 138,000 (and the pine cone). Lendvai folded because he didn't have a pine cone within his stack...
No, we're kidding, Lendvai made the call with and Palovic turned over .
"You're ahead," said Andrew Li, "53%!"
The board came and Palovic doubled up to about 300,000.
Play has really slowed down over the last five minutes with few flops and many more walks. Ankush Mandavia is one of the shorter stacks remaining, he just pushed for around 360,000 over the top of compatriot Eugene Yanayt's 40,000 opening raise, forcing the chip leader to fold
Andrey Danilyuk raised to 45,000 under the gun and Litterio Pirrotta reraised to 110,000 from the cutoff. It folded back to Danilyuk who four-bet to 265,000. And then back to Pirrotta, who announced all in to cover him. Call.
Danilyuk:
Pirrotta:
Board: with the king on the door.
Danilyuk fist-pumped as he doubled to 1.8 million. Pirrotta looked crestfallen - he's down to 440,000 now.
Torsten Brinkmann has lost over 300,000 to Eugene Yanayt in an intriguing (and lengthy) pot just now. Heads up to a flop, Brinkmann started a trend of check-calling which was to prove costly by the end. He called 50,000 on the flop, 100,000 on the turn, and then 170,000 on the river.
Sarah Grant caught him at the first break to discuss this hand.
"You're good," muttered Yanayt as he was forced to show his . But he wasn't, mucking and giving the start of day chip leader another chip tower to add to his collection.
So much for thinking that it would be going slow and steadily today...
Jose Nadal had 4-bet shoved all in preflop against Litterio Pirrotta. The Italian calling off having made the initial 3-bet.
Nadal:
Pirrotta:
The Italians on the rail began to cheer some encouragement and were shouting out loud when the board came . A quick countdown showed Pirrotta had Nadal covered by just 25,000 or so and the Mexican disappointedly exited in 19th place.
Whatever had been happening to Andrew Li earlier, it wasn't good, as his stack was nearly half what it was when he started the day when he joined a full stack preflop race.
That soon changed, however, as he three-bet button Tamas Lendvai 153,000 (he'd made it 42,000 to go) and then called all in when Lendvai posed the question.
Li:
Lendvai:
The board ran out giving Li the 'niner' he politely requested: . He now has 850,000+ after three-betting the next hand for good measure out of the small blind and nicking a Domantas Klimciauskas raise.