Robert Cheung raised to 26,000 before the flop and Pim de Goede made the call. The dealer spread a flop of acrross the felt and both players opted to check.
The turn card came and Cheung checked once again, prompting de Goede to fire 43,000 into the middle. This Cheung to muck his cards and the pot was shipped in de Goede's direction.
The champion of last year's Casino Employees event, Hoai Pham, has taken a hit to his already short stack. After Pham raised to 28,000 from middle position, Paul Nash three-bet to 65,000 holding the button.
Pham decided to make the call and the flop fell . After a check by Pham, Nash continued with a bet of 105,000 and the bracelet winner released his hand.
Metin Kose raised to 24,000 and watched as Michael Blanovsky three-bet, making it 68,000 to go. Kose decided to see a flop and made the call, bringing the to the board.
Kose tapped the table and checked to Blanovsky, who responded with a continuation bet. This sent Kose into the tank and he thought things through before asking "Aces or Kings?" With no answer forthcoming from Blanovsky, Kose tossed his cards towards the muck.
Barley ten minutes into Day 3, we have already seen our first all-in confrontation. After Christopher Homan raised to 28,000 from middle position, Jacob Toole reraised all-in from the small blind, placing his last 150,000 or so chips at risk. Paul Nash decided to come over the top and four-bet for the rest of his stack. Homan got out of the way and the cards were revealed.
Showdown:
Nash:
Toole:
Toole was in a commanding position with the mother of all Hold'em hands, and Nash would need to catch lucky in order to score the knockout.
Flop:
Catch lucky is exactly what Nash did, spiking top two-pair on the flop to take the lead. The turn card came and Nash was one card away from taking the chip lead.
River:
With that, Nash's two-pair had been counterfeited by Toole's aces up. This double-up boosted Toole to 350,000 while Nash dropped to 430,000 with the runner-runner beat.
In one of the vagaries of the random seating draw process, this Day 3 began with five of the seven largest chip stacks sitting at one table. Our chip leader Perry Lin is our only million-dollar man, with 1,054,000 chips.
He will be joined by Paul Nash (736,000), Jonathan Spinks (688,000), Matthew Lupton (555,000) and Melanie Weisner (549,000). This means that more than 36% percent of the 9,864,000 chips in play will be sitting at a single table. We expect the action to be fiercely contested on Table 284, as all five of these big stacks looks to assert their supremacy early in the day's action.
The third and final day of Event #38, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em tournament, is upon us and 23 players remain in contention for the WSOP gold bracelet and first prize of $540,136. After wading through a field of 2,192 runners, the surviving competitors have been rewarded with an opportunity to etch their name in poker’s history books.
Our chip leader entering Day 3 is Perry Lin (1,054,000), of Hoboken, New Jersey. Lin is a budding amateur player with three previous cashes coming in various editions of the Borgota Poker Open. Among the notable players trying to chase Lin down is Melanie Weisner (549,000), a 25 year-old tournament professional who has earned five cashes in the 2011 WSOP. Weisner has been a mainstay on both the European and American circuit for just three years, and she is looking for her biggest score yet after finishing 12th in the 2010 EPT Prague Main Event.
A pair of Brits, and their raucous railbirds, will also put their stamp on Day 3, as Paul Nash (736,000) and Jonathan Spinks (688,000) try to continue the British Invasion of 2011. If both Spinks and Nash can reach the final table, the loud and lewd celebrations we witnessed yesterday will look like a dignified Sunday tea time.
Former bracelet winner Hoai Pham (208,000), who captured the $500 Casino Employees event last year, will also be seeking to secure his second gold bracelet. A win here today would elevate Pham from the ranks of one-time winners to the upper echelon of poker.
Check in with PokerNews throughout this Day 3 to follow all of the action, as our 23 remaining players battle to reach the final table, and then to ultimately crown the WSOP’s next champion.