[user66118]
Kessler in his PokerNews duds
It's time for a Chainsaw update!
Allen Kessler was in the small blind, and he drew two cards before making a bet. Yueqi Zhu was the lone opponent, and he opted to raise after drawing the same two. Kessler called the extra bet.
On the second draw, Kessler would take one while Zhu waved the dealer off and bet. Kessler called.
Zhu stood pat on the last draw, but Kessler still wanted one more card. Both men checked, and the Chainsaw turned over 8-7-5-4-2. Zhu couldn't table anything better as he returned his cards to the dealer.
[user66118]
Amnon Filippi raised under the gun, and Fu Wong three-bet when it came around to his big blind. He stood pat while Filippi drew two cards. After the draw, Wong led out, Filippi raised, and Wong called the additional bet.
On the second draw, Wong decided to draw a card while Filippi stood pat this time. He got in another bet, and Wong called again.
Filippi would stand pat again and put out one more bet. Wong drew one card, and it wasn't good enough to call with. He ducked out, leaving himself 3,000 chips to use in a better spot.
Since we have a few minutes to kill, let's talk about Greg Mueller. "FBT" is approaching 30,000 chips here in our event, but he was busy tending to more important business earlier today. PokerNews' own Lynn Gilmartin caught up with Mueller just after his second bracelet ceremony this year:
[user66118]
that card no this card
As further proof that fatigue is setting in, Peter Hedlund just made a costly error that lost him a pot, discarding the wrong card on the final draw and ending up with a pair.
[user66118]
Billy Baxter - 13,400
Rob Hollink - 12,500
Hasan Habib - 27,000
Howard Lederer - 12,000
Daniel Negreanu - 25,000
David Sklansky - 20,100
John Juanda - 15,000
Amnon Filippi - 6,200
Fu Wong - 9,700
Jon Turner - 7,400
Nam Le - 21,000
[user66118]
It's still an action game, but the pace of knockouts has slowed noticeably over the last level or so. The majority of the players are right near the average stack, with relatively few at the extreme top or bottom of the board. That's been a contributing factor to the tighten-up, but it may also just be that time of night.
Several of the players are getting heavy heads and eyelids, and the table chatter has thinned out as well. A few players are up from their chairs and wandering around the room, either to check on their pals or just to stay awake.
There's a lot of rubbing of the temples and ordering of coffee right now, and the once-swamped massage crew are longing for new customers as they stand lined up along the rail.
[user66118]
hmm I love the new wsop sponsor
We pick up a heads-up pot between Jimmy Fricke and Fabrice Soulier after the first draw. Fricke was first in the small blind, and he bet. Soulier called from the button.
On the second draw, Fricke stood pat while Soulier asked for one card. After he peeked, the Frenchman would call another bet from gobboboy.
Fricke sat still again, and Soulier wanted one more try at pulling a good card. Both men checked on the end, and Fricke tabled the winning 9-6-5-3-2. He's up to 30,600 now.
[user66118]
Phil Hellmuth was one of the late registrants for this event, but he never showed up to play his stack. (We're pretty sure he's at the UltimateBet party tonight). After some discussion, the staff elected to void his entry and remove the chips from play. That decreases the field size by one, and it throws off all those beautiful numbers we typed up earlier.
With a field of 257 players now, the total prize pool is $591,100. That takes a little bit off of the payouts, with first place being worth $165,521. The full updated payout list can be found in the tab on the right.
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