We already mentioned the late registering table featuring Brandon Adams, Layne Flack, Brian Hastings, JC Tran, and Amnon Filippi, but what we didn't mention is that they are already tearing it up, throwing chips around, and having a good time.
On a flop of Brian Hastings bet the pot (1500), the big blind moved all in, and Brandon Adams also went all in with Hastings calling. Adams said, "Well, this might be a short tournament for me" as he put his chips in the pot.
Adams:
Big Blind:
Hastings:
The turn and river were respectively and Adams rivered the nut flush to stay in it. Flack after the hand said something along the lines of, "Man, it would suck to take a bad beat from Layne (Layne sucked out on Adams earlier in a big hand), hear a bad story from Layne, and then get busted a few hands later."
Layne then found a golf ball in his pocket and said, "Man, I didn't think that was mine, I thought I was going to have to go to the doctor or something." The players laughed as Hastings and the big blind pushed chips over to Adams and he tripled back up to around 16,000.
This will be a fun table to watch while it lasts here in the early stages of the tournament.
Carlos Mortensen got short early on here and is now gone from the tournament. We haven't lost too many people, but we should see more and more being eliminated here in the middle levels.
The action folded around to the player on the button who raised to 400 before the flop; Men "The Master" Nguyen called from the small blind, as did Daniel Negreanu from the big blind to go three ways to the flop of .
Nguyen bet 800, Negreanu called and the button got out of the way before both players checked down the turn of the and the river .
"Two pair, ace high," mumbled Nguyen. It wasn't good enough, because he mucked after Negreanu showed for a bigger two pair.
Davidi Kitai raised to 300 from middle position and was called by both the button and Amnon Filippi in the big blind. Filippi checked the flop, allowing Kitai to continuation bet 650. The button called behind while Filippi decided to get out of the way.
Kitai slowed down once the dealer burned and turned the , providing the button the opportunity to seize control with a 1,575 bet. Kitai thought for about a minute before tossing his cards to the muck. While he lost that pot, Kitai is still sitting pretty with a stack of 18,000 and both his rebuy chips.
T.J. Cloutier bet out 1,275 on a flop of and was called by the button. The turn came and Cloutier bet out 3,825. The button folded an Cloutier showed the but no other spades in his hand. He said, "The old man still has some play in him after all."
While there was no $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha/Six-handed Event last year, there was a regular PLO $5K buy-in event. Chance Kornuth emerged victorious in that tournament, so for all intents and purposes, he is considered the defending champ.
Kornuth is back in action today and looking to defend his title . . . or at least capture a brand new one!
Over on table five, David Williams limped in from under the gun before JC Tran raised to 400 from the cutoff. The player on the button potted it, making it 1,575 to go and both the blinds and Williams got out of the way before Tran called to go heads-up to the flop of .
From there, all the money was shoved into the middle and the cards were tabled:
Button:
Tran:
Tran had outs to the gut-shot straight draw, but the opponent improved to a set with the on the turn and then filled up with the river to double through.
We came to the table with the flop reading , and Barry Greenstein heads up with his opponent. Greenstein put out a bet of 1,000, and hos opponent called. When the hit the turn, Greenstein check called a bet of 2,500. The hit the river, and both players checked. His opponent showed for two pair, and Greenstein mucked. Despite the hit, he's still above his starting stack with both 5,000 add ons available.
When it comes to pot-limit Omaha, there are few characters as likable and talented as Sam Farha. In fact, all of Farha's three bracelets have come in the Omaha variation: