Although the Televised Final is six-handed, we're down to 10 players here at the Loose Cannon, and they're all redrawing for their merger into one table. Just now it was short stack Arvydas Kondratas all in on the button with - dominated by cutoff Lee Watts' . He had already donned jacket, gathered possessions and made it halfway across the room before the turn left him drawing dead on a board of ...
Youngster Eric Tran is a gonna and just misses out on the final table. On their backs, Eric was in deep trouble with his Pocket Fours in need of assistance against Patrik Selin's Queens. A third Lady on the turn for Selin sealed the deal and sent Tran packing.
Tournament Directors
During his hiatus from the table, Darren Woods continued to argue his case. According to my secret source (well, Peter Gould), Darren and neighbour Eric Tran attempted to agree to an all-in prior to the hand. Eric minimum raised, only for Darren to look at one card and push all-in. Arguing that Darren had broken their agreement by peeking down at one card, Eric folded.
At this point, Darren was banned from the table for collusion, during which time he asked to see a copy of the rules and asked why both players weren't temporarily ejected from the game.
We'll keep you informed as to whether or not this kafuffle continues, but it's certainly causing the Tournament Directors a headache or two during this penultimate level.
Tony G
Darren Woods has received a round's worth of away-from-table penalty for pushing the boundaries of what is permissable to say preflop to potential opponents. The somewhat inebriated-sounding player appeared to "attempt to prearrange action with an opponent" and then somehow all his chips were in a big pile over the line. No interest from neighbour Eric Tran...
The next hand Tony G gets his hand swept up into the muck preflop as he wasn't in his chair - brief half-hearted argument that he need only be "in the vicinity" but then submission to the floor's ruling that his hand is dead.
The next hand was Tony G's last - supershortstack for a good while, he eventually pushed preflop with , called by neighbour Patrick Selin, whose was more than good enough. A quiet handshake and exit stage left.
Josh Gould
After the aforementioned double whammy from Lee Watts, the Sunderland amateur is now top of the pile with 59,100.
Not too far behind is poker newbie Josh Gould, who, at just 18 years of age is performing remarkably well with 50,500 in chips. A flopped set followed later by flopped quads perhaps aiding the youngster during these latter stages.
Online qualifier Lee Watts, who is playing the tournament of his life, has just eliminated two players in the one hand, and two side event winners to boot in Dave 'El Blondie' Colclough and Mike Conway.
Although Dave and Mike held A-Q on a 5-x-Q-x board, Lee was sitting pretty with a set of Fives, and thus didn't hesistate in whipping in those chips on the irrelevant turn.
Drawing dead, Dave and Mike were quickly sent packing leaving Lee to pile up his newly acquired monster stack which we shall try and count in the very near future.
Having found herself relatively short stacked moving in to the 300/600 level, she found in the small blind, which connected with the flop - only not as well as the of Lee Watts, who called her all-in bet. Despite calling for a Jack after the turn brought the it was not to come and we're down one more...