Susie Zhao has been cruising all day, and is still accumulating chips, upping her stack to 325,000 now. However, her table has been broken, and she has been moved to the direct right of young star Bryan "Devo" Devonshire. We will know soon enough whether this move is good or bad for Devo, but safe to say we will have one eye on this table for most of the afternoon.
We came in on the feature table with Phil Hellmuth heads up against an unknown player. There was about 6,000 in the pot, and the two players saw a flop of . Both checked, and the turn brought the . Hellmuth checked, and his opponent fired out 3,000. Hellmuth elected to min raise to 6,000, and his opponent called. When the hit the river, Hellmuth quickly put in his last 3,500. He was called, and instantly flipped over for a full house. His opponent mucked, and Hellmuth collected a much needed double up to 26,000.
As soon as the hand was completed, the feature table was broken, and Hellmuth was moved to Alec Torelli's table. These two could provide some big action, and we will be sure to keep an eye on it.
The official numbers are in and the prizepool has been calculated. There was a total of 549 entrants that created a prizepool of $798,795. The top 54 players will get paid and min-cash is worth $3,065. Just making the final table guarantees $15,935 with first place taking home $171,810, the gold ring and automatic entry to the National Championship in May.
We found Darren Hicks and Phil Hellmuth going to a flop together in a blind vs. blind matchup. The flop came and Hicks bet 3,200 from the small blind. Hellmuth took his time, counted out a call and then reached for raising chips. After a minute or so he raised to 8,700 and Hicks insta-shoved all in.
Hellmuth calmly folded after a moment of thought and is around 15,000.
We reported earlier that Susie Zhao had increased her stack to the chip lead at 160,000. Well we just went back to her table, and noticed that she had built her stack up even more. As we were trying to count her stack, she looked up and said "around 3" meaning that she has somehow built her stack up to an unheard of 300,000! We will try to track her down at the break to get the details, but its safe to say that she is far and away the chip leader at the moment!
Alex Massman started the day with the chip lead with 133,100, and from our estimation, he is still sitting on about that much. Meanwhile, table mate Susie Zhao started the day with 94,400, but her stack has seen a big rise, as she has rocketed to the top of the leaderboard with 160,000. These are two of the biggest stacks, so we might see some fireworks soon.
When we walked up to Steve Brecher's table, we saw that he was all in and well ahead preflop. Brecher held , while his opponent, Paul Serrate, held . The board provided no scare for Brecher, coming . Brecher boosted his stack to over 80,000, while Serrate falls to around 70,000. Brecher is one of the most seasoned veterans left in the field, and will surely put his new found chips to good use.
. Both checked, and the turn brought the 
. Hellmuth checked, and his opponent fired out 3,000. Hellmuth elected to min raise to 6,000, and his opponent called. When the 
hit the river, Hellmuth quickly put in his last 3,500. He was called, and instantly flipped over 
for a full house. His opponent mucked, and Hellmuth collected a much needed double up to 26,000.
![[user196975]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
and Hicks bet 3,200 from the small blind. Hellmuth took his time, counted out a call and then reached for raising chips. After a minute or so he raised to 8,700 and Hicks insta-shoved all in.
, while his opponent, Paul Serrate, held 
. The board provided no scare for Brecher, coming 
