With around 28,000 in the pot and a board reading , McLean Karr bet 16,700 and was called by Eric Baldwin, who left himself just 22,900 behind. When the peeled off on the river, Karr thought for a moment before making a bet large enough to put his opponent all in.
Baldwin snap-called and showed , which was good against the of Karr. Interestingly, the black pocket nines is the same hand Phil Hellmuth used to win the 1989 WSOP Main Event; coincidentally, both Baldwin and Hellmuth are from Wisconsin. If you're looking for useless, yet fun, trivia, there you have it!
Jonathan Jaffe raised to 3,500 from the hijack and received a single caller in the form of Dan Martin on the button. Jaffe proceeded to bet 3,000 on the flop only to be raised to 8,800 by Martin. Jaffe refused to back down and bumped it to 15,800, which Martin called.
When the dealer burned and turned the , Jaffe checked, Martin bet 35,000, and Jaffe tank-folded. Ever the gentleman, Martin allowed his opponent to see one card, which ended up being the .
With about 18,000 in the pot and a flop of , Michael Pesek checked to Chris Oliver, who bet a modest 3,100. Pesek made the call and the duo watched as the hit the river. Both players politely checked and Oliver rolled over , which was good as Pesek silently mucked.
Erik Seidel, who has had quite the 2011 so far this year, raised to 4,000 after action folded to him in the cutoff. Tony Cousineau, a name you might recognize as the man with the most WSOP cashes without ever having won a bracelet, defended from the small blind and it was heads up to a flop.
Cousineau the check-called a bet of 5,000 as the dealer put out the on the turn. Again Cousineau checked and Seidel continued to bet, this time 10,000. It was enough to get the job done as Cousineau released his hand.
A series of preflop raises and reraises resulted in Steve Billirakis being all in with against the of Nicolas Levi. We've seen a couple of these race situations throughout the day, but it seems the small pair is always holding up.
In this case, the flop came down and helped solidify Billirakis' lead. The turn changed nothing, and the river ensured a Billirakis double.
The tournament clock says we have 98 players remaining in the field, which means 71 of them are going to walk away empty handed. The reason being that the $2,340,600 prizepool will only be distributed among the top 27 players with first place receiving $573,456.
We found this hand with a large pot at the river. Chris Moorman was first to act with the board reading . He slid out 125,000, more than enough to cover what Josh Arieh had left behind. He took a good long tank while Moorman kept his stare down at the table. Arieh moved his stack in the middle to see Moorman table . Arieh mucked his hand and left the tournament area.
Lee Watkinson was recently eliminated from the tournament after holding against the of Jason Somerville. A flop made things interesting, but Watkinson was ultimately eliminated.