Steve Auld opened to 7,000 and Nick Walker defended his big blind with , absolutely smashing the flop.
Walker led for 10,000, Auld ripped it in and Walker made the call for his tournament life with the Broadway straight. Auld was on and the turn gave him outs.
However, the river bricked, and as Walker doubled to the top of the chip counts, Auld was left with a rebuilding project.
Start-of-day chip leader Tom Babiarz has steadily increased his lead on the field today, up close to the 300,000-chip mark as Level 17 comes to a close.
In fact, he's chipped up without benefit of any big hands or major confrontations thus far.
Joseph D'Antuono is on a massive heater right now.
"I've picked up a ton of big hands," he told PokerNews.
In fact, D'Antuono has had big slick four times in just the first few levels here today, on the way past the 300,000-chip mark and into a spot among the leaders as Level 18 comes to a close and the money bubble is fast approaching.
Alex Rivera joined one limper into Jeffrey Joseph's big blind and the small blind came along before Joseph raised it to 28,000 total.
The first limper called and Rivera joined in before the small blind decided to pass. Joseph checked the queen high flop, but when the original limper led, Rivera shoved for less. Joseph folded and it turned out Rivera had flopped a set of sixes against for top pair.
A jack on the turn gave him a sweat, but Rivera faded all trouble to more-than double.
![[user127999]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
, absolutely smashing the 
flop.
