In a recent hand, the player in the hi-jack raised to 12,000 and Phil Hellmuth defended from the big.
The flop came and both players checked. When a came on the turn, Hellmuth checked again, prompting an 8,000 bet from his opponent. Hellmuth quickly called.
The river brought the and Hellmuth checked a final time. His opponent deliberated, but eventually checked behind and tabled for a rivered pair of fours.
"God!" Hellmuth exclaimed, revealing the .
"I had him drawing dead the whole way and he hits a seven-outer," Hellmuth fumed.
"I wouldn't call seven outs exactly drawing dead," his opponent retorted while scooping the pot.
"I just want to throw up right now," Hellmuth said.
After documenting Jonathan Driscoll friendship with defending Main event champ Jonathan Duhamel, we witnessed him stack an opponent in style.
After Driscoll made a raise, his opponent shoved all-in and the Canadian, small-buy in wunderkid snap-called with his . The dejected opponent showed down and when the he saw the in the window, he knew all was lost. The final board read and Driscoll claimed the fallen player's entire stack.
Aaron Massey has continued to build his stack up over the past couple of levels. We keep catching the tail end of his all-in encounters, but we know that most recently the board read and his ended up as the triumphant hand.
After the hand was over he had an above average stack of 248,000.
We caught up with the action just as Antonio Esfandiari was scooping a sizable pot. It appeared that an opponent had gotten all in against Esfandiari preflop. Esfandiari had and his opponent had , however, a four landed on the flop, giving Esfandiari a set. His opponent was unable to improve on the turn or river and was sent to the rail.
With that hand, Esfandiari has chipped up to 320,000.
We caught up with Radu Junc as he tried to secure a much needed double up. The deaf player, who has captivated the room during his run to the final forty, watched an opponent raise to 15,000 from under-the-gun.
Junc motioned to the dealer for a raise, waving his upwards with a flourish before placing 50,000 into the middle. After some confusion over whether the gesture constituted an all-in or simply a raise, the UTG player was faced with a tough decision.
Following a minute or so of pondering, the opponent pushed all-in for his remaining 75,000 chips. Junc made his intentions known by placing his his hand to head, thumb to his ear and pinky finger to his mouth. The implication was clear as day and no words were needed: Junc was calling.
He stood up and proudly showed down his , which had his opponent's dominated. With his fellow deaf players and friends rushing to the rail to watch the action, the flop fell .
Junc raised his fist in triumph when he saw the diamond free flop, and after the arrived on the turn Junc knew he had earned the much needed double-up. His friend and fellow deaf poker player Brad Gibson rushed over to give his impressions on the hand, furiously typing his thoughts into a text message so we could know how proud he was of Junc.
"Played it perfectly" Gibson said with a smile on his face, adding "He trapped him, looked weak and then got him!"