Among the chip leaders most of the day, Eli Elezra raised to 3,500 under the gun and another early-position player reraised to 10,000. Elezra made the call, the flop came and Elezra moved all in. His opponent went into the tank for a long, long time before making the call. He learned of his mistake when Elezra revealed , much better than his . Elezra now has 110,000.
Not so long ago Kenna James was nursing a seriously short stack. He's left those days behind and now sits with 50,000. He just picked up another pot when he limped with jacks, had another player move all in for 6,000, and Kenna made the call. He was way ahead of his opponent's and flopped a set to lock up the pot.
T.J. Cloutier, who had tripled up during the first three hands of the day today, just took a large hit to his chip stack. T.J. and another player managed to get all their chips in the middle preflop with T.J. holding K-Q while his opponent held pocket kings. His opponents kings held up and after the hand T.J. is down to just 4,100 in chips.
T.J. Cloutier was crippled in an earlier hand and when he moved his last 2,700 into the pot he was called by the player in the big blind, who revealed . T.J. saw the hand and was disappointed that the nine in his hand wasn't live, and when the dealer told him to turn over his hand Cloutier said, "I was going to show 'em, don't be so nervy." He rolled his eyes and said, "Turn up your cards, jeez!"
T.J. had , didn't hit his queen, and was eliminated.
We started the day today with tables in the Red, Orange, and Blue sections of the Amazon room. For those unfamiliar with the layout, that's a little more than one half of the room, or around 140 tables.
Several hours later, all of the remaining tables are now in the blue section, which isn't very big. Admittedly, it is also the furthest corner away from all exits leading to food, restrooms, and cash games.
Why is this relevant, you ask? We just learned that one of the remaining players in the field of 160 took a cup from his table and walked to the back corner of the room, purportedly planning to use it as a makeshift restroom.
Kindly, he instructed our reporters to "look away" were they to see him headed that way again.
Tomorrow is the Ladies' No-Limit World Championship and a player asked Liz Lieu if she was playing. She said no, and when the player asked, "Why not? You're one of the best-known female players in the world," Liz smiled and said, "Well, I'm going to be playing this event all day tomorrow and make the final table, so I won't have time."
Phil Hellmuth, who just busted from the $10,000 Stud Championship event, made his way over into the remaining field here to say hello to his buddy Eli Elezra.
Upon seeing Eli's chip stack, Phil replied, "Eli! You're doin' it, buddy!" And then proceeded to sing Guns 'N Roses' "Patience" to Eli. Lee Watkinson, without missing a beat, chimed in "He's got a lot of that, he's laid down about one hand an hour since we got back from dinner."
Scattered throughout the Amazon Room are big inflatable Milwaukee's Best Light cans. If you've seen the commercials they show those cans plummeting out of the sky and crushing some guy who wasn't acting like, well, a guy. Well, the inflatable cans have little inflatable legs sticking out from underneath them...you get the picture? Good.
Anyway, Kenna James ripped one of the velcroed legs off the can near his table and he's playing with it sitting next to his chips. Why, pray tell? "Because I'm kicking ass!" James said. And it's true--not so long ago he was sitting with just a few thousand chips and now he's over 50,000. No word about whether the Rio staff will let James take the leg home with him.
...he's wearing the boot like a tail now, the toe end sticking out. We may need an intervention at Table #11.
Earlier we reported that Jonathan McGowan was rubbing Scott Freeman for good luck before moving all in in a hand. Several hours later, McGowan and Freeman ended up doing battle when both players got all their chips in the middle preflop. Freeman held A-5 while McGowan held A-Q. Luck continued to be on McGowan's side as the hand held up, though this time he opted not to take part in the now-traditional rubbing of Scott Freeman's shoulder.
However weird it may be, it certainly seems true that Scott Freeman has become McGowan's personal good luck charm.