Jason Mercier, decked out in a shirt that reads "Future Billionaire", was the sole winner of a 6-way pot that was three-bet pre-flop. Every player called a single bet on the flop and then every player checked the turn. On the river , one player led out after a check. Everyone folded to Mercier.
"You probably have 9s full, huh?" asked Mercier as he flicked a call into the pot. His opponent, however, could only muster up two pair, nines and eights, using . Mercier did a bit better, using two queens in his hand to make queens and eights and drag a massive pot.
"I'm probably the only one who considered folding pre-flop," said Mercier. It's a good thing he didn't. That win pushed him up to 8,300 in chips.
John Monnette is reading a book in between hands at Table 263. The title is "Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey -- and Even Iraq -- Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport". It gets 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com. No word yet how much Monnette likes or dislikes it.
Gavin Smith didn't look pleased on a flop of . He had an opponent all in, but Smith's double-suited aces, , had been outflopped by his opponent's kings, . Smith still had a few draws to either a scoop or half, but the board came running deuces to give his opponent the whole pot.
We've got a number of Team PokerStars Pros surging early in this event, with Team Pro Online George Lind leading the way at dinner break. Also building his stack slowly but surely is Team Pro USA Jason Mercier, followed by Barry Greenstein and Alex Kravchenko who are both above their starting stacks this evening.
Greg Raymer just joined a table in the Blue section. Upon arriving, he noticed that there wasn't much space at the 10-handed table.
"I'm going to need a liiiiiiiiiiitle more space than this guys," said the husky Raymer. "Unless you want me sitting on your lap." Everyone quickly scooted aside to make space. That's when Raymer noticed his chair was wobbly.
"Of course the chair is wobbly," remarked Raymer. "Even if this guy had a good chair when he left, one of you with the bad chair would have switched it."
The field is now complete, and this level a few tables got even tougher. Phil Ivey and David Sklansky joined David Benyamine at his table. And at the Red Section's clear table of death, Todd Brunson sat down with George Danzer, Chau Giang, and David Bach. Dan Shak was added to the lineup when his table was one of the first two to break.
On a board, one player checked, Greg Raymer bet, and the next to act raised. The original checker called, and Raymer three-bet. The other two flat called, and Fossilman showed for the nut low. His flush, however, didn't win him the top half. One opponent took that with for eights full. The other player mucked.
We were surprised to see Tom "durrrr" Dwan show up for this event. We assumed that a $1,500 tournament was far below his radar and interest level. Maybe it was. Dwan spent almost the entire time he was in the tournament engrossed by his phone. He was all in earlier and survived, but when we passed by his table a few minutes ago his seat was empty and his chips were gone.
Leave it to the Jimmy Fricke to expound upon when something is interesting. Fricke played a fairly standard Omaha pot where one bet went in on the flop, one bet went in on the turn, and the river checked. At showdown on a board, Fricke showed down to take the pot with two pair. Afterwards, one of Fricke's opponents said that the hand wasn't very interesting. "Interesting things won't happen in O/8 for about eight hours."