When the cards were revealed, Kasper Nielsen (small blind) will have been forgiven for holding his palms out before him and assuming a double though, his in dominating shape against button Steven King's . Even when the flop hit the felt, he will have remained unfazed, but following a turn, the hit the river to deliver King a rather unexpected pot, and turn Nielsen's face as white as his namesake.
As Neilsen left to share his tale of woe with a friend at ringside, King sheepishly raked in the pot and began reconstructing a now 70,000 stack.
The action folded around to Rob Jarrett-Smith who raised to 2,400 from the small blind. James Mitchell called in the big blind. Both players checked the flop, and the turn, only for Mitchell to take a stab on the river with a bet of 2,900. Without hesitation, Jarrett-Smith made the call with . Mitchell showed .
There's 22 minutes left of this level and the count on the board says we have 217 players remaining meaning we've lost 39 players in just 50 minutes or so at a rate of almost a player a minute.
All-ins in every nook and cranny here at the Burlington, the latest seeing Tommy Wan lock horns with a shorter-stacked Jonas Becker.
With versus , Wan was looking for an ace/king-less board, but his prayers were slapped back as the flop came to serve up both cards. No snowman on the turn and river (6s and 4d to be precise), and Wan's stack melted to 12,000, whilst his foe received a nice, timely double up.
Marc Goodwin sinks into the felt, his head in his arms as he faces the green of the baize. The others players try to look sympathetic, but deep down they probably wanted that river to hit, if only because, like all of us, they're sick sadists who enjoy the entertainment of a bad beat.
Of course, with every bad beat, there's a recipient, and on this occasion it was Goodwin. Having called an early position raise with from French qualifier Daniel Horvath in the big blind, he then pushed all in for just over 20,000 (15,000 pot) on a flop.
Horvath paused very briefly before calling (leaving circa 20,000 behind) with the adamant tone you'd normally associate with a monster, before turning over a surprisingly paltry .
A few shakes of the head later and the turn was dealt, a safe, harmless , but on the river, the money card arrived in the form of an to award the Frenchman the pot, and the Brummie the door.
"Unbelievable," mumbled Goodwin under his breath, his feet seemingly glued to the floor. "****ing joke."