Earlier in this level, Chris Amaral had his stack dashed down to just 225 lonely chips — less than a small bet. A half hour later, he's in full rebound mode.
Amaral just sent Michael Binger to the exit, making a made hand on sixth street to leave Binger dead with one to come. The knockout moved Amaral all the way up to 11,000, and he's starting to get a little giddy as tries to make good of this second lease on his tournament life.
Action was three-handed by the time we joined up on fourth street. This pot played out between Phil Hellmuth, Mike Watson, and a lady we're unfamiliar with.
Watson bet fourth street and found two calls, and the lady bet her lead on fifth. Call-call. She fired another bullet on sixth street, but this time Watts made the raise to 1,200. Hellmuth cold-called, and the lady called the extra bet to see the last down card. She couldn't call Watts' final bet, but Hellmuth did so quickly.
Watts: /
Hellmuth: .................
Hellmuth mumbled through Watts hand out loud. "What is that? A flush... and a low?"
Cue the scowl.
"I've got a straight and a low..." Hellmuth continued slowly, staring down forlornly at his cards. It would be another thirty seconds or so before he shoved his cards back to the dealer and began cursing the universe.
It was all very amusing for Scott Seiver who was sitting in the seven seat and watching this all play out.
In this event last year, Mike Sexton set the poker world abuzz as he looked to capture his second WSOP bracelet, his first coming back in this event in 1989 Unfortunately for him, and many poker fans around the world, Chris "PiMaster" Viox proved a formidable foe and ultimately dispatched the Poker Hall of Famer in second place.
Sexton is back in action and looking to improve on last year's performance. He's off to a good start, sitting with 9,000, but he has his work cut out for himself as Matt Hawrilenko, Kirk Morrison and Layne Flack are seated in order to his left.
Once again, we're watching the brothers Mizrachi put on a poker clinic. Robert is up around 15,000 right now, while brother Michael has that beat. His count of very nearly 20,000 puts him close to the top of the overall chip counts right now.
The action has started to pick up and as a result players are hitting the rail. A lot of tables have broken recently and players sent to empty seats, so it's taken some time for the dust to settle. We scoured the field and have redone our lists, and unfortunately there have been some casualties. We can confirm that the following players have been eliminated from the tournament:
![[user66118]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
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