The final 175 players (out of the initial 965) returned to the Amazon Room about 13 hours ago to play for a seat at the final table of Event #51, the $3,000 Triple Chance No-Limit Hold'em extravaganza. Ten levels later, we've almost succeeded in setting that final table, ending the day with twelve men -- still a few too many to fit around one felt.
Jason Potter, Allen Kessler, and Ted Forrest were among the very early casualties of the day, Kessler in particular forced to the exit by some foul luck. Also exiting over the course of play were Jordan Morgan, Amit "Amak316" Makhija, Jonathan "therookieqq9" Plens, Matt "allinat420" Stout, Julien Brecard, Alexander Kravchenko, Gavin Griffin, and a whole raft of others.
The bubble arrived with 91 players left, and as it turned out, Neil Channing and Jonathan Tare both busted on the same hand to split the bottom payout and send the rest of the field off for the run to the big money. Brecard cashed small, as did Jacobo Fernandez, Marco Johnson, and Alessio Isaia.
Tommy Vedes came into the day with the big stack, and he has managed to ride those towers all the way into tomorrow's final day. Vedes was cut short during the middle stages of this middle day, though, and it looked for a time like he might be on his way out. A quick and hearty revival of his stack saw him back in contention within a few hours, and he's finished up in third place with just shy of one million chips.
Just in front of Vedes is Frank Rusnak, but everyone's chasing the monster stack of Jon Eaton. An eleventh-hour monsterpotten against Guillaume Darcourt has given Eaton 1,678,000 chips to stuff into his barely-big-enough thin plastic bag, and that will set the pace for the field as they return tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, we're scheduled for a 2:30 p.m. restart, and we'll play it out until we crown a champion. We'll be right back here in this spot, and we hope you'll join us for the conclusion of our event.
Until tomorrow, then, all that's left is goodnight!
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Jon Eaton
, and it got even worse when Vedes turned over a dominating hand, 
. Vedes flopped a flush draw, 
, to take away one of Benzimra's outs, but Benzimra also flopped a straight draw. None of the draws came in as the turn and river came 
and 
to give each player two pair, nines and eights. Vedes' ace kicker played to take down the pot and send Benzimra home just a little bit earlier than everyone else.
, and Mitchell led out with a follow-up bet of 75,000. Rusnak flatted, but things would not be so friendly on the 
turn. When Mitchell fired another 120,000 at the pot, Rusnak moved all in, and Mitchell quickly called off his last 190,000 to put himself at risk. The news was no good:
was not the two-out queen Mitchell was looking for, and he has been eliminated in 14th place. On the flip side, that knockout pot moves Rusnak all the way up to 940,000.
and found himsef up against Darcourt's 
, and Mattingsley's 
flop as Eaton grabbed a big lead in the hand, two cards from the knockout now. The 
turn opened up a flushy chop possibility for Mattingsley, but the river 
was the wrong color to be of any use to him.
. Ahmed is the 16th-place finisher.