There were three all ins on the first hand of hand-for-hand play. In one a preflop raising war resulted in Jared Solomon being all in for 31,500 holding the and up against the of Jesse Yaginuma. When it came time to run the board out, the dealer put out the and Solomon survived. Not only that, he chipped up quite nicely.
As previously mentioned, there were three all ins on the very first hand of hand-for-hand play, and one of them gave us the bubble boy.
It happened over at Table 443 when a short-stacked Michael McDonald of Jonesboro, Arkansas (in other words not to be confused with Mike "Timex" McDonald) moved all in for 8,900 from the cutoff and Fabien Marguerite called from the small blind.
McDonald:
Marguerite:
McDonald was ahead, and according to the PokerNews Odds Calculator, he had a 55.62% chance of surviving the hand while Marguerite had a 43.94% chance. The was kind to McDonald and upped his chances to 76.67%, but the turn was cruel as could be as it paired Marguerite and made him an overwhelming 93.18% favorite. McDonald needed an ace on the river to stay alive, but it wasn't in the cards as the blanked. With that, McDonald left empty handed while everyone else secured a minimum payday of $2,871.
We arrived at the table to find Joel Bullock all in for his tournament life before the flop against Joshua Gottesman. Bullock held and was racing with Gottesman's .
The board brought and Bullock was sent packing. Gottesman scooped up the pot and is now sitting on about 75,000.
We caught up to the action to find a player all in for his last 29,500 before the flop. Start-of-day chip leader Greg Hobson was pondering a call and eventually tossed out the necessary chips. He showed but was crushed by his opponent's .
The flop brought and Hobson needed to catch running cards in order to win this pot. It was not meant to be, though, as the turn brought the and the river the . Hobson was forced to ship double up chips across the table and is now sitting on about 118,000.
A big hand just boiled down. Tam Truong had put out a bet of 8,000 into a pot of 15,000 on a flop of . Manig Loeser decided to raise it up to 16,500. Truong thought for a moment and pushed his remaining chips in. Loeser snapped called and the cards were flipped.
Truong:
Loeser:
Loeser held bottom set and Truong would need either of the remaining Jacks to stay alive. He had no chance as the board finished and then the . Truong is gone and Loeser holds a healthy stack of 115,000.
Action folded to Stephanie Belk in the cutoff and she raised. When it folded to Brent Wheeler in the big blind, he opted to move all in for 14,700 more, and after some deliberation, Belk made the call.
Belk:
Wheeler:
"Shit. Good hand," Belk said upon discovering she was dominated. "I thought you had a small pocket pair."
Belk was wrong and she paid the price as the board ran out an uneventful .
We didn't catch the preflop betting, but we do know Jonathan Cole ended up all in for roughly 15,000 holding the and was way out in front of Martin Malone's . With that said, getting it in good isn't always enough and that was the case here as the flop paired Malone's queen and made him the favorite. The turn was of no help to Cole, and neither was the river.
Hank Czarnecki almost had a double when he was all in against Mike Mustafa with his well ahead of Mustafa's . The board came . The board almost ran clean for Czarnecki until the river. Czarnecki put his head down in sadness. Mustafa was all smiles as he said, "That was one of the toughest calls I have made all day." Mustafa is up to 100,000.