After a flop of , Jeff Williams bet out 3,200 and the player on the button called. The turn brought the and both players checked to see the come on the river. They both opted to check again and then Williams simply tossed his cards into the muck. The dealer started to push the pot to the other player before John Cernuto interjected saying that the player had to reveal his cards to win the pot. Indeed, Cernuto was correct in that if a hand goes to showdown the winning player has to show their hand to win the pot, even if the other player mucks.
The button did reveal his for a pair of sevens as he scooped up the pot.
With the flop reading , Barry Shulman and Jason Alexander checked to their opponent in seat 2 who bet out 1,600. Shulman quickly got out of the way while Alexander made the call.
The turn brought the , pairing the board. Once again Alexander checked and his opponent chose to fire out 3,225 this time. Alexander threw out a check-raise, making it 7,100 to go. His opponent made the call.
The struck the river and both players checked like lightning. Alexander flipped over the for a rivered pair of kings. His opponent shook his head while laughing and mucked his cards while Alexander scooped the pot, bringing him to 71,000.
Maria Ho was just all in with her tourney life on the line with and up against an opponent's .
The flop came , and Ho's hand remained best. The fell on the turn, eliciting an "uh oh" from one of her tablemates. But the river was the , and Ho doubles back to about 28,000 as we head to the break.
"Never easy," said Ho afterwards as she stacked her chips.
So said the tournament director just now to the dealers, coming up with yet another creative bit of cliché avoidance. The last level of the night is underway.
A rough count shows that 639 of the 897 who began the day have made it through to the start of Level 5.
When we got to the table, we saw the button with 2,550 in front of himself and Jeff Williams with 7,750 in front of himself which we assume was his raise. The button came back with another raise to 14,750 total and Williams folded fairly quickly. The hand brought Williams back down to just over his starting stack.
A player in mid-position opened for 850 and Sammy Farha who was freshly moved to the table immediately raised to 2,500 right behind him in the hijack. The player called and checked on the flop. Farha fired 3,500 which was enough to take down the pot when his opponent folded.