The discussion during that break among many of the players had to do with how much more poker would be played tonight. Two more one-hour levels are scheduled, but it sounds as though we may well stop at some point before that depending on how many more eliminations we see.
The Tournament Director was explaining to a table just before the break that they'd definitely be playing through Level 9, then perhaps stopping at some point before the end of Level 10. Once the field gets down in the 11-15% range (of today's starters), he said, that is when a decision will be made about stopping play today.
With the board showing and about 6,000 already in the middle, a player in middle position checked, Thomas "gnightmoon" Fuller bet 2,000, and his opponent called.
The river then brought the and a quick check from the middle position player. Fuller counted out a bet of 3,600, leaving himself about 3,000 behind. His opponent tanked for two minutes, then let it go.
Fuller now has about 9,200 as we approach the end of Level 8.
We just were watching Al Krux's table. Krux, some may recall, has made no less than three WSOP Main Event final tables (1990, 1994, 2004). Safe to say he's pretty much seen it all.
While there we saw a not too interesting hand in which a player raised to 400, Krux reraised to 2,100, and Krux's reraise was enough to take the pot. He now has about 8,000.
Noticing the note-taking, the player sitting next to Krux called us over. "Hey, I got something for you," he said. "This player went all in," he began eagerly. "And another one called, and one of them won!"
That end of the table laughed. "Really? The same thing happened on that table over there!" was our reply.
At the end of Level 7 the tournament clock said 500 players remained. Since we started the day with 2,340, this means we have lost 1,840 players during seven levels, or seven hours (420 minutes) of play.
Breaking this down . . . 1,840 elminated players/420 minutes = 4.38 players eliminated per minute. This is a slight drop from earlier in the tournament, but the players are still hitting the rail fast. Our guess is that we'll reach the 15% mark before the completion of ten levels.
At the end of the previous level, a player raised to 800 from middle position, then another reraised to 2,000 from the cutoff. It folded to Kara Scott in the big blind, who looked at her cards, then pushed out a reraise to 5,000.
After that, the original raiser was raising again -- his eyebrows, that is. After a half-minute he slid his cards toward the dealer with a slight shrug. The player in the cutoff then asked Scott what she had left. About 5,000 was the answer. He tanked for another three minutes, then folded as well.
Subsequent discussion revealed the original raiser had pocket jacks, and the other of Scott's opponents would've called an all-in shove by her, but did not want to call the raise she chose. Scott just smiled and shared nothing further about her hand.
and about 6,000 already in the middle, a player in middle position checked, Thomas "gnightmoon" Fuller bet 2,000, and his opponent called.
and a quick check from the middle position player. Fuller counted out a bet of 3,600, leaving himself about 3,000 behind. His opponent tanked for two minutes, then let it go.
, while his opponent turned over 
. The board came 
, and Sklansky doubled up.
hit the turn, Hudson bet 2,000 and Potter made the call. Hudson then bet 5,000 when the 
came on the river. "Really?" asked Potter, "Call."
for top pair and Potter mucked, dropping to around 3,200.