The Pace Quicken; Spears Drops A Hundo

Bruce Pace joined the six-figure stack club in the first level winning all of one player's chips in two hands.

First he got it in with against before hitting a jack on the river. Then he cracked the same player's with , hitting a on the river.

Pace has it quickly up to 115,000, is above average and loving the river right now.

In the meantime, Pat Tighe now leads and isn't even here yet. Andy Spears fell out of the top spot doubling up a bunch of short stacks. The first when he flopped a gutshot and was priced in to call. One pair held for the shorty there and when you add up the others, he's down about 100,000. Spears' chip count is bound to fluctuate a bunch today, as he plays a lot of hands and opens a ton of pots.

Spears was opening for the fifth hand in a row when he got involved in a pot that sent him soaring into the lead late last night. It seems that hand will be the stuff of legend around here for quite a while and we now have the details:

Spears led for 5,300 from early position at 1,200/2,400 with . A player behind made it 12,000. The small blind who had been talking about the fact he bagged in an earlier flight, and was playing to build a big stack or bust, flatted. Spears re-raised to 33,000. The player behind made it 80,000 and the small blind pushed all in for 110,000.

Spears pushed all in having them both covered and the player behind folded. The small blind had and queens held for Spears to give him a massive lead coming into the day without even a sweat.