A severely short-stacked Jacobo Fernandez was just now all in preflop against two opponents. Fernandez’s foes checked down all five community cards -- 
. One then turned over 
for a pair of queens, enough to knock out Fernandez with his 
.
![[user46392]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
Happy days for Romerico Magbanua as he found himself holding pocket queens on a queen-high flop. His opponent, all in by the time we arrived at the table, was holding pocket kings. The turn and river failed to do anything for the hapless holder of the outdrawn cowboys and he headed for the door.
Magbuana is in possession of over 14,000.
A player in early position opened with a raise, Shannon Elizabeth reraised to 250, and her opponent called. Both players checked the 
flop. The turn was the 
, Elizabeth’s opponent bet 300, and she called.
The river brought the 
. This time the early position player made a smallish bet of 400, and Elizabeth responded with a raise to 1,200. He called, Elizabeth showed 
for the straight, and her opponent mucked.
Elizabeth is now up to 5,500.
We’ll have no new players registering to play today, but of course players continue to sign up for this first $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event.
The big board is showing that we’re creeping toward 3,800 entrants overall, and that number will surely continue to rise all day and night and through the second level of Day 1b tomorrow. We'll see eventually whether the final total reaches 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, or, as my partner danafish has predicted, "one million."
Level: 3
Blinds: 50/100
Ante: 0
Two whole levels have come and gone, and now it's time to mill around in the hallway for 20 minutes.
By the by, when we return, registration will be officially closed.
Shaun Deeb has had a mixed day. He's already been moved three times (they're dropping like flies already) but he seems to be doing pretty well at his latest table, alongside Hevad Khan, David Levi and Rami Boukai.
We witnessed the Deebster minimum-raise to 100 in mid position, only for the gentleman in the cutoff to make it 350. It folded back around to Deeb, who promptly made it 850 to go. The cutoff folded, and Deeb showed him a cheeky .
Deeb is sitting on around 5,000 in chips now.
Brandon Cantu, newly moved to one of our Tables Of Death with Tom Marchese, Tommy Vedes and Andy Black, did not fare terribly well at his new seat. Not long after moving there, he got involved in a short raising war which culminated with him getting his whole stack in from the button with 
against Brett Schwertlay's 
in the big blind. The board ran out a jack-free 
and Cantu was eliminated from the tournament. Schwertlay is up to 11,000.
With the board showing 
, Steven Levy’s opponent checked, Levy bet 550, and his opponent called. The river then came the 
, and Levy’s opponent bet 200, leaving himself just 525 behind.
Levy thought a bit, then called, showing 
. His aces were good, and he’s now up to 7,500 as we near the end of Level 2.
As expected, Team PokerStars has got a small (in comparison to the size of the field) but perfectly formed presence in the Rio today.
Over here in the Pavilion, as well as the aforementioned Joe Cada, we have George Danzer (Team PokerStars Pro: Germany), Richard Toth (Hungary), Martin Hruby (newly signed to Team PokerStars Pro: Czech Republic) and Lex Veldhuis (Netherlands). Over in the Amazon Room, Vanessa Rousso and Chris Moneymaker are doing their thing.
And registration ain't over yet...
