With a raise of 725 in front of him, Mikhail Korotkikh shoved all in for 7,950. A player behind him re shoved, and the initial raiser gave up.
Time to open the cards, and it turned out to be a race situation:
Mikhail Korotkikh:
Opponent:
The board blanked out.
Korotkikh yelled "Я так счастлив!" ("I am so happy!"), or at least we hope that's what he yelled as we don't understand Russian.
His opponent complained about it to the floor man, and the man in charge promised to give Korotkikh a warning the next time something like that happened. As long as Korotkikh is winning all ins we promise you it will, as we've been hearing him shouting for years now after doubling up. It's his trademark ok?
With a board of , Nicolas Chouity bet out 2,900. Next door neighbor Toby Lewis, who busted twice yesterday but is back for more, folded the cutoff. A third player involved made the call.
We missed the pre flop action, but we imagine Paul Tedeschi in the hijack was the pre flop raiser, and the small blind the sole caller.
On a flop of , the small blind checked to the Frenchman. Tudeschi answered with a 1,500 bet, and the small blind check raised to 3,500. Tedeschi took back his 1,500, added a 5,000 chips, and threw in the three chips for a total of 6,500. The dealer mistakenly thought the raise needed to be double (3,500 times two), but Albert Daher quickly corrected him and the 6,500 stood.
The small blind called.
The turn came the and the small blind checked. Tedeschi bet out 8,200 and the call followed after some thinking.
The fell on the river and the small blind once again checked. Tedeschi fired 10,200 with just 6,200 behind. The small blind thought about it for some ten seconds, and then raised to 16,500.
Tedeschi seemed a bit agitated, and folded his hand rather quickly.
Does that look like hocus pocus to you? Let us explain.
It's not even dinner break yet (still 90 minutes till the players can attack the fantastic buffet), and the clock is already showing comparable numbers to yesterday.
On Day 1a a total of 150 unique players entered, and 22 players re entered to make for a combined 172 entries.
Today on Day 1b right now 151 players entered, and 19 players made a re entry already making for 170 total.
Buying back in if you bust is possible till the end of tomorrows first level. So far, the total amount of entries reads 342, far and beyond the 262 players that played here last year, though it was a single re entry tournament in 2013 and not a single re entry per day like this year.
There's not a whole lot of dust around the Merit Crystal Cove resort, it's mostly carefully watered lawns and the occasional swimming pool, but Kitai did just take a bite of it.
According to the World Poker Tour bloggers, Kitai found himself with in a five way pot on with two diamonds. Kitai was the first one to bet, and received a single caller.
The turn brought the to the table, making for three diamonds now, and it went check (opponent), bet (Kitai), raise (opponent), all in (Kitait), and call (opponent).
Well, the wasn't any good, he was in fact stone dead as the Belgian turned out to be up against . The river wasn't able to change a thing and Kitai made his way to the rail.
Will the Belgian two-time bracelet winner buy back in? We suspect so, but only time will tell (or his twitter).
Reigning champion, and late Day 1a casualty, Alexey Rybin has bought back in. Also back in is Davidi Kitai who has a crispy 30,000 stack to work with again.
New (to us at least), is Toni Judet. We saw him walking around with a buy in receipt, looking to get a seat card to join the action.