Robert Herman limped in from under the gun. Action folded to John Morrell in the small blind, who raised to 4,200. Marco Traniello shoved from the big blind for about 8,000. Herman immediately came over the top of Traniello, folding Morrell. Traniello, with , was far behind Herman's . The board came nine-high, sending Traniello to the line snaking through the room from the cashier's cage.
To hear Gavin Griffin tell it, the field in today's event is pretty tough.
"I've got Jesus at my table," he said. "And this guy plays good. And this guy plays good. And this guy plays good," he added, pointing to seats at his table in rapid succession. "I thought the $1,500 events were supposed to be soft!"
From our reports coming from the tournament floor, David Bach has been the most active player in the room today so far.
In a recent hand, his {9?} {9?} flopped a set and busted a fellow big stack who held {A?} {A?} . All the money got in preflop after a series of raises and re-raises before Bach cracked his opponent and sent him to the rail.
Now, it's Bach's turn for rockets. Jean Harlan moved all in from middle position, for 11,000 chips. Bach woke up with the , and made the call. His opponent held , and did manage to pair on the flop of . However, the additional help did not come when the and peeled off on the next two streets, allowing Bach to rake in another pot and claim another victim.
David Bach is our chip leader by quite a decent margin, sitting with 255,000. He is the only player above 200,000.
On a board of , Pat White bet 10,000 into Kenny Tran. Tran called. Before the river was dealt, White bet 25,000 in the dark, enough to put Tran all in. The dealer peeled the off the deck. Tran deliberated for several minutes before calling for all of his chips. White showed an unimproved ; Tran's was good enough to take the pot.
Winning this pot bumped Tran's stack up to 84,000. As a post script to an earlier post, Tran did manage to get the Yankee game on a television near his table.
A late position raiser made it 9,000 to play. Terrence Chan reraised to 16,000 from the cutoff seat. Gavin Griffin three bet from the button making it a total of 48,000 to see a flop. The initial raiser folded and Chan pushed for just a few thousand more. Griffin made the call and the players showed:
Griffin:
Chan:
Griffin got no help from the community card and was left with just 700 chips. Chan finished what he started by eliminating Griffin on the following hand.
Yet another player has fallen victim to the aggressive David Bach.
This time, the player under the gun, John Morrell, opened the action by pushing his remaining stack to the center, about 14,000 chips. Bach, being the chip leader, had an easy decision with , and made the call. Morrell needed to catch up with his .
The flop brought a set for Bach, , putting Morrell one foot out the door. The last two cards failed to help him, and Bach again drags a pot and knocks out a player, something that is becoming all too familiar to his competitors.