Eric Buchman
Eric Buchman open-shoved for 604,000 from the button, Robert Allen moved all in for less from the small blind and after tanking for a bit and asking for a count, Francois Balmigere made the call from the big blind.
Allen
Balmigere
Buchman
The flop came down , Buchman's tens leading. The turn, though fell the -- Buchman hitting a set, but Allen making a Broadway straight. The on the river, however, paired the board, giving Buchman the monster pot with tens full. Balmigere dropped to 1,260,000 and Allen was eliminated in 140th place.
Fabrice Soulier did some thinking out loud after opening preflop for 49,000 and seeing Steven Levy move all in from the button for 601,000.
"I think I can beat you," said Soulier. "What do you think?" He got no reply from Levy but called anyway.
Soulier:
Levy:
Soulier was right -- he could definitel beat Levy, and did so on a board of .
"Good game man," Soulier offered to Levy as Soulier collected the pot. Then, perhaps for the benefit of the table (or the ESPN cameras), Soulier added, "I'm ready to gamble. You have to gamble to win this tournament."
Ian Woodley raised to 60,000 from middle position, Hamid Nourafchan reraised all in from the small blind, and Woodley called with the last of his chips. Woodley turned over and Nourafchan .
The flop came , giving Nourafchan a set. Woodley was now hoping for a runner-runner straight or one of those two queens. The turn was the , adding to Woodley's hopes. But the river was the , and Woodley is out in 143rd place.
As we expected, the two featured tables have been rotated following the break, and we have eighteen new players under the bright lights:
Main Featured Table
Seat 1: Thai Tran
Seat 2: Billy Kopp
Seat 3: Dennis Phillips
Seat 4: [Removed:197]
Seat 5: J.C. Tran
Seat 6: Joe Hachem
Seat 7: Peter Eastgate
Seat 8: Edward Teems
Seat 9: Frank Rusnak
Secondary Featured Table
Seat 1: Ryan Hart
Seat 2: Herbie Gelman
Seat 3: Bradley Craig
Seat 4: Sarne Lightman
Seat 5: Anh Van Nguyen
Seat 6: Jake Abdalla
Seat 7: Phil Ivey
Seat 8: James Akenhead
Seat 9: Steven Begleiter
We came to Table 32 in time to see a three-way flop of . Richard Whalen was first to act and checked to Eugene Katchalov, who bet 80,000. Sitting with the button, Christopher Bach raised that bet to 227,000.
Whalen asked for a count of how much the raise was before folding his hand. Katchalov then reraised to 530,000 total. Bach put in the last raise -- all-in, for a total of about 1.2 million. Katchalov quickly surrendered.
Ludovic Lacay
John Martin limped from middle position, Ian Woodley raised to 85,000 from the hijack, then Ludovic Lacay reraised to 225,000 from the cutoff. It folded to Alex Prendes who shoved all in for about 1.9 million from the small blind. Martin and Woodley folded, then Lacay quickly called, turning over . Prendes showed . Afterwards, Woodley said he folded ace-king.
The board came , and Prendes is out in 144th. Lacay bounds all of the way up to 4.12 million.
After being crippled on a hand right before the break, Joe Serock open-shoved from the cutoff, and Jake Abdalla re-shoved from the button. Both blinds folded and the cards went on their backs.
Serock
Abdalla
The board ran out and Serock headed for the payout desk to collect his $40,288 for 145th place.
One of the noteworthy stories emerging at this 2009 WSOP revolves around Dwayne Stacey. The soft-spoken man from Romsey, England was here last year, and he managed to make a deep run to crack the top 100 in the Main Event. This year though, Stacey had decided to take Series off until he heard about the staking offers on ChipMeUp. On the Thursday before the Main Event started, Stacey found out that he could be sponsored by ChipMeUp, and he was on a plane and here at the tables in time to play Day 1d the following Monday. A total of eleven players were sponsored into this event through the site, and Stacey has been the last man standing for almost a full day now, closing in on a second consecutive top 100 showing. Melissa Castello caught up with the Brit just after the money bubble had burst on Day 4; check out what he had to say about this year's Main: