The players are jockeying for chip position now as we make the final push to the November Nine. Joseph Cheong and John Dolan are roughly level at 11.5 million each after a pot the two just played. Dolan opened for 500,000 pre-flop from late position and was called by Cheong from the small blind. Both players checked a queen-high flop, .
Cheong led out for 635,000 on the turn, with Dolan calling in position behind him. Cheong almost doubled the bet on the river , firing 1.125 million into the pot. Dolan called again with a rivered two pair, . Cheong just mucked his hand.
Action folded to Matthew Jarvis in the cutoff seat. A couple spots over, Benjamin Statz moved all in from the big blind for 4.985 million. After Jarvis got an official count, he made the call.
Jarvis held the and was up against the for the all-in Statz.
The flop came down huge for Jarvis with the , giving him a full house. The turn was the and the river the to add some insult to injury with Jarvis making quads.
Statz earned just under $400,000 for his 16th-place finish while everyone else in the field earned a pay jump to just over half a million dollars.
Duy Le is shaking his head at his bad luck. He smooth-called an early-position raise to 500,000 from John Dolan, creating a heads-up pot for a flop of . Dolan continued for another 720,000, then called dafter Le opted to put in a significant raise to 2.0 million. Both players checked the turn. When the river fell , Dolan took the lead again with a bet of 3.6 million. Le instantly called, but mucked his hand in the fac of Dolan's .
Le later told his rail he had been dealt pocket aces. Whether true or not, what we know for sure is that his count is down to 4.5 million and Dolan is up to 17.8 million.
Joseph Cheong found a way to get back some of his wayward chips. After Pascal LeFrancois opened for 475,000, Cheong made it 1,425,000 to go. LeFrancois kept up the aggression with a four-bet to 3,425,000. That didn't slow down Cheong. He jammed all in for more than 11 million and induced a snap-fold from LeFrancois.
The clock is down to triple zeroes, ending the level and sending the remaining 15 players on a 90-minute dinner break. What a level it was!
Things started off with the rapid descent of Michiel Sijpkens, who wasn't able to recover from losing some big pots towards the end of the previous level. His elimination in 19th place paved the way for a two-table re-draw. The significance was evident to all: one more table of eliminations stood between the final 18 players and the November Nine.
Scott Clements was the first to depart, much to the disappointment of many of the women in the crowd. Clements wasn't able to get much going despite playing plenty of pots. He finally wound up all in with against Matthew Jarvis' and busted from the feature table in 18th place.
At the outer table, players were snug. Nobody was making many moves and one bet was often enough to take down a pot. That finally changed when David Baker check-raised all in with a flush draw and ran into Jonathan Duhamel's overpair. No help on the turn or river made Baker the 17th-place finisher.
Many eyes have been on Michael Mizrachi today, wondering if the Player's Champion could make it all the way to the November Nine. He suffered a big setback towards the end of the level, committing a large portion of his stack with top pair and then folding to a check-raise from Brandon Steven.
The level ended with the elimination of Benjamin Statz in 16th place. That means 15 players hungry for a bit more than dinner will re-convene at 8:35pm local time. It looks like Jonathan Duhamel will be the chip leader when they come back. From that point nobody will leave until the November Nine are known.
Walking back into the Amazon Room about twenty minutes ago, you'd hardly know there was a poker tournament going on in here. The room was entirely devoid of life, apart from a few well-positioned security guards keeping a close eye on the vast emptyness. We peeked out the side door to see where everyone was, and we found the great crowd lurking in the corridors, waiting for the doors to unlatch. About a hundred or so people have stacked themselves up behind the ropes, most of them friends and family anxiously sweating their loved ones. There were a lot of nervous looks and quiet, tense conversations amongst the masses.
The lights are still dim above the felt here in the featured table arena, but the chatter is starting to pick up. The staff has taken their places and a few of the players have tricked back into the room, lingering around the perimeter of the stage and waiting to resume possibly the most important night of their poker career. Lives will be changed tonight.
We're just a few minutes from getting back in action, and T.D. Robbie has just called the players to their chairs. The lights have been lifted, the doors have been opened, and the spectators are en route.
A few minutes into the level the doors finally opened to non-family-and-friend spectators. They came running across the emptied out Amazon Room hoping to secure choice spots along the rail or in the upper spectator box. Ty Stewart, an imposing figure near the entrance to the feature table area, immediately put his hands in the air and started calmly (but loudly) instructing the spectators to, "Calm down! Calm down!"
Watching them enter the Amazon Room through one narrow chokepoint really does look like someone has taken their proverbial finger out of a proverbial dam. In moments we went from a strangely quiet Amazon Room to five deep on the rail.
.
turn, with Dolan calling in position behind him. Cheong almost doubled the bet on the river 
, firing 1.125 million into the pot. Dolan called again with a rivered two pair, 
. Cheong just mucked his hand.
and was up against the 
for the all-in Statz.
, giving him a full house. The turn was the 
and the river the 
to add some insult to injury with Jarvis making quads.
turn. When the river fell 
, Dolan took the lead again with a bet of 3.6 million. Le instantly called, but mucked his hand in the fac of Dolan's 
.
against Matthew Jarvis' 
