We arrived to the table and John Racener and Jesse Martin had all their chips in the middle after Maurice Hawkins folded what he said was . Martin was in good shape to double up with against Racener's .
The flop changed nothing as it came , but the on the turn moved Racener into the lead. The river was the and a dejected Martin walked off, almost exiting the room before realizing he needed to collect his winnings.
In addition to Racener, Hawkins, and Dwyte Pilgrim, Table 440 also has Chris Klodnicki seated there making it one of the toughest table left in the field.
Athanasios Polychronopoulos has had a roller coaster of a day and we are only 90 minutes into it. Early on he lost a big pot with versus pocket eights. Just now we saw him back in action, opening from the cutoff and the big blind, Omar Mehmood, defended.
Mehmood then led the flop for 23,000. Polychronopoulos raised to 75,000 and called all in after Mehmood shoved. Polychronopoulos was at risk for his last 223,000 and showed for nines while Mehmood revealed for sevens. Neither the turn nor the river changed anything, and Mehmood tapped the table with a "nice hand."
Filip Vanherck opened for a raise and got shoved on by a short stack. He called with , seeing he was against . He flopped a pair on the flop, and it stayed best through the turn and river.
Wenlin Wang lost the big pot early on with jacks versus kings and never recovered from that. Just now he was all in for his last few big blinds with and Christopher Keller looked him up with . Both hit a queen but the board delivered four diamonds to complete the flush for Keller.
It was folded to a short-stacked Chris Klodnicki in the small blind and he moved all in for his last 135,000. Gennady Shimelfarb looked at his cards and made the easy call with . Klodnicki was drawing thin with and would be eliminated when the board did not help him.
So we were just told by the Belgian himself how he got that massive stack.
Early on he raised with and spiked bottom pair with one club on the flop, turned the for the open-ender and flush draw, and binked the on the river for the flush. The opponent in the big blind triple-barrel-bluffed with and hit the bottom end of the straight with the final community card to empty the clip for another 180,000. Can you hear the jingle bells?