We caught up with Bryan Pimlott as he continued to crush the competition. Pimlott, a tournament grinder who made a deep run to finish 13th in this year's $1,500 Limit Hold'Em event, had taken a flop of against one opponent.
The other player fired a bet of 1,450 at Pimlott, who paused for a few seconds before making the call. The dealer turned the and this time Pimlott's opponent opted to check. Picking up on this weakness, Pimlott stared his man down before betting 2,700 chips. The opponent quickly mucked his cards and Pimlott grew his stack to approximately 48,000.
We caught the action as a player raised to 800 from under-the-gun and the small blind made the call. Carlos "The Matador" Mortensen decided to three-bet for the rest of his chips, forcing a fold from the under-the-gun player. The small blind was harder to shake, however, and he made the call with .
Mortensen tabled and was in great shape against his dominated opponent.
Board:
The Matador's top pair, top kicker was good and Mortensen chipped up to over 30,000 after the hand.
After it was folded around, the button moved in for their last 1,850 with . Kathy Liebert was able to find a calling hand in the small blind with the .
The board ran out and Liebert has chipped up to 9,000.
On a flop of , the first player to act checked, the second player bet 2,600 and Justin Smith flatted in position. The player who was out of position folded.
The turn was the and Smith's opponent moved all in. Smith called for his last 10,450, revealed for a set of fives and had the of his opponent drawing dead. The meaningless hit the river and Smith has boomed all the way to 30,000.
After an opponent in the hijack position three-bet for the rest of his stack, Steve Watts snap-called and tabled the . Watts found himself dominating the held by the other player and after the board rolled out , Watts earned the pot, building his chip stack to 71,000 chips.
Dutch Boyd, on the button, went to a flop with a player in the big blind. The board was , the big blind check-raised all in after a 2,700 bet from Boyd. Boyd called and the hands were turned up.
Boyd:
Big Blind:
Boyd's aces needed help, but it did not come. The turn and river were and Boyd's aces were cracked and he slipped to only 1,300.
We missed the action ourselves but after spotting J.C. Tran among the field lording over an impressive tower of chips, we inquired as to how he had amassed his fortune.
According to a fellow player, Tran and an opponent got all of their chips in the middle on a flop of . Tran's opponent showed for a flopped set, but found himself on the wrong end of a sick cooler when the tournament veteran flipped up for top set.
The case queen failed to make an appearance on the turn or river and Tran had dispatched his opponent from Day 1 of this $1,500 Triple Chance NLH event.
We passed by a table with three players standing in anticipation and three large stacks of chips pushed towards the middle of the table. The dealer was having some trouble assessing exactly how many chips each player had, but when the accounting was finally settled Ngoc "Jimmy" Tran tabled his and turned back to watch the basketball game, confident that his pocket rockets would hold up.
His opponent's showed the and the respectively, and Tran was in a dominant position.
The final board rolled out and Tran tripled up to build a huge chip stack.