Zachary Turcotte put his 59,700 chips into the middle preflop with , and he was racing for double or nothing against Brandon Croft and his {Ah] .
There was a beautiful five on the flop for Turcotte, and the board of held his pair to earn him a big double up close to 130,000. Croft, on the other hand, is left with just 22,000 chips in front of him.
Matthew Schulte was all in for his tournament life against John Nguyen at their table in the Amazon Room. Schulte held and was racing against Nguyen's .
The board ran and Schulte's hand did not improve, sending him to the rail.
Nguyen's stack is even bigger, he now sits with 364,000 chips.
Dean Hamrick got all of his money in before the flop with , and he ran into both Christopher Giddings' and Blair Hinkle's .
The board changed nothing as it ran out , and that big pot goes to Giddings. We'll have to wait a minute for him to stack chips so we can count him down, but we can tell you that Hamrick is out, and Hinkle has been crippled all the way down to just 18,000 lonely chips.
Update: Giddings appears to have taken over the chip lead with that pot; he's all the way up to 346,000.
Jeff "YoungSupremacy" Hakim and Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier just butted heads in a 200,000-chip coin flip.
We missed the exact action, but when we got to the table the board read and in front of Hakim lay . According to another player at the table, Grospellier held queens and it was a, "Huge flip."
Hakim's stack ballooned to 220,000 chips and Grospellier is in trouble with just 10,000 chips.
If you plan on coming to Vegas during the 2010 World Series of Poker, you should look into staying at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. PokerNews can help you get sick room rates both during the week and on weekends when things can get awfully expensive in this town. Use the code "CEPKNEW" when you book your stay to get $69/per night rates during the week, and $179/night on weekends from May 31-July 18. We want to see you here for the WSOP so take advantage of this offer!
We missed the action before the flop, but we walked up to a big pot brewing as the dealer spread out a flop of . The two blinds checked, and Jan Skampa put out a bet of 8,400. Harsukhpaul Sangha called from the small blind, but John Nguyen snuck in a check-raise to 23,000 total. The action was back on Skampa now, and he moved all in for about 60,000. Not to be outdone, Sangha shoved over the top for about 100,000 total, and Nguyen got the message and ducked out of the way. With Skampa at risk, the cards were on their backs:
Sangha: (top set)
Skampa: (oops, four outs)
The turn was not the jack Skampa was looking for, and neither was the on fifth street. Unable to find his out cards, Skampa has been sent to the rail, and Sangha shoots himself all the way up over 200,000 in chips.
A player in middle position opened to 7,500 and the action folded to Brandon Croft in the big blind who three-bet to 20,000. The player in middle position tanked for a bit before moving all in. Croft also went into the tank but eventually called and the hands were opened:
Croft:
Opponent:
The dealer flopped to put Croft in the lead. Neither the on the turn nor the on the river improved his opponent's hand, and he doubled through to 112,200 chips.