Good morning and welcome back to our continuing coverage of the 2009 UltimateBet Aruba Poker Classic.
Our starting field of 469 runners has been trimmed to 263 as Day 2 dawns. Among those remaining are a smattering of Team UB Pros and online qualifiers, as well as a few other notable full-timers. Defending champion Matt Brady is still in the mix as well, but he'll need to do some good work today to make another deep run. Players from the two separate Day 1 flights are now combined into one field for this moving day.
The clock shows just about 11 minutes until our scheduled start time. We'll be back as soon as the action goes live.
After the hijack seat raised to 1,200, Jean-Robert Bellande made it 4,000 to go from the button. Action folded to Joe Tehan in the big blind and he went into the tank. A minute or so passed before Tehan put in a raise to 14,500. The hijack seat folded and then action fell back on Bellande.
Gazing at Tehan's stack Bellande said, "How much did you start the day with, Joe?"
"A little over 28." was the response.
A few moments passed by with Bellande pondering his decision. "I think you're on a move, I think you're on a move." he said. "I'm so ridiculously certain you're on a move."
Another minute passed by before Bellande said, "It's not my money so I'm all in." Tehan quickly called as he had put in the majority of his stack already with his raise.
The climax turned out to be a big dud as both players tabled . The board ran out and with neither playing holding a spade, the dealer chopped up the pot.
On the very next hand from their preflop all-in confrontation, Joe Tehan and Jean-Robert Bellande battled again. This time, action was a lot more subtle with Tehan check-calling a bet of 2,400 on the turn and then both players checking the river.
The board read and Tehan tabled for trips. Bellande mucked his hand.
The Poker Rapper, J.T. "mooknam" Bisson lost all but about 2,000 of his chips in an ugly pot with ace-king.
A few hands later, he looked down at pocket jacks and got the remainder of his stack in the middle. He was called down by a player with to put Bisson in good shape for a little double up. The board was full of problems though, as his opponent turned an open-ender and a flush draw. A third diamond on the river meant a flush for the jack-five and the end of Bisson's day.
James Honeybone was all in preflop and had his opponent on the ropes. Honeybone held against his opponent's pocket queens. The board ran out , earning Honeybone the elimination and the pot.
Vinny Pahuja checked a flop of to his opponent. The player fired a bet of 1,500 and Pahuja made the call.
After the turn fell the , Pahuja checked again. His opponent fired 2,000 this time. Pahuja reached into his stack and laid out a raise to 5,700. His opponent held enough chips in his hand to make the call and acted as if he was going to call. In the end though, the player folded and Pahuja picked up the pot.
Matt Brady opened the pot with a raise to 1,000, and Bryan Devonshire moved all in for just about 10,000. When it came back to Brady, he made the call with pocket eights. Devonshire could only show up two fives, in bad shape for his tournament life.
The board ran out dry for the Team UB Pro, and Devonshire's day is done.
Al Riccobono just stopped by the media desk and kindly let us know he won a big three-way pot to move from 23,000 up to about 60,000 in chips.
Riccobono flopped the nut flush and there were two all ins in front of him. He made the call and saw that not one, but both of his opponents also flopped flushes! One opponent held a queen-high flush and the other had the jack-high flush.