Alexander Kostritsyn opened with a raise to 3,000 from under the gun, and got one caller from middle position.
The flop came . Kostritsyn bet 4,500, and his opponent called. The turn was the . This time Kostritsyn bet 10,000, and again his opponent called.
The river brought the . Kostritsyn tried again, betting 25,000 this time. Once more he was called, after which his opponent flipped over . Kostritsyn appeared to flash a middle pair (eights or nines), then tossed his cards dealerward.
After winning a few pots early on, Kostritsyn slips to 260,000.
Our PokerNews reporter ran over to find a huge pot developing with three players all in; including Saar Wilf.
Wilf:
Opponent:
Opponent:
The board ran out and Wilf more than doubled to over 265,000 after doubling through the ace-king as well as sending the player holding pocket fours home.
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A player limped into the pot from early position and the cut off raised it up. Action folded around to Jason Alexander in the big blind, who min-raised. The limper folded and the player in the cut off called.
The flop came and Alexander led out for 10,000. His opponent made the call.
The turn brought the and after a check from Alexander, the cut off fired out 17,000. After a short session in the tank, Alexander gave up the hand.
"I go all in, you call that one?" Jason Alexander said, sounding more like he was reassuring himself instead of posing the question to his opponent.
From early position, Jason Young moved all in for his last 9,100. Action came all the way around to the big blind, and the player there made the call. Young turned over , and his foe turned over .
The first four community cards ran out clean for Young, but an untimely on the river gave the pot to the big blind and eliminated the bracelet winner from the field. Young slammed his fist down on the table with a big, "Jesus Christ!" before wishing his table luck and heading off into the sea of spectators. When he was out of earshot, table mate Jean-Robert Bellande said to nobody in particular, "Poker is a cruel game boys... cruel game."
"It's been like this every hand," Jimmy Fricke confided when we went back to his table to see how things were developing over there. Fricke was referring to a ridiculous amount of action on a flop. Fricke started things off with a preflop raise to 3,500 that was called by a player in late position and the big blind.
Those two players went to war on the flop, with bets and raises of 7,000, 27,000 total, 52,000 total, all-in 203,000, and call all in 110,000 total. (Fricke had gotten out on the flop without putting in a single chip.) The all-in player showed down ; his opponent flopped a set of sevens, . The board ran out to send the all-in player to the rail.
During the hand, Andrew Gaw was broken to Fricke's table. He brought with him 580,000 chips -- a potentially tournament-leading stack.