Allen Cunningham raises, and Hellmuth makes the call from the button. Josh Arieh also calls before Donnacha O'Dea reraises the pot from the big blind. Cunningham and Hellmuth pass but Arieh makes the call.
Arieh sets O'Dea in for his last 6,250 and the Irishman readily calls flipping , while Arieh needs to hit with his straight flush draw since he's holding . But bricks come on the turn and river as O'Dea makes deuces full to put him on around 25,000.
Since all players were made to cash in their Rebuy token, the average stack instantly rose as hitherto safe-from-harm (and also useless for ammunition) chips entered the contest. This, combined with the expected swings in an Omaha tournament, make the stacks rise and fall in unpredictable ways, with some tables having a monster leader and others staying level.
Example Table (12)
Ilkka Koskinen - 22,800
Kristian Eriksson - 43,000
Erik Friberg - 20,000
Alexander Kravchenko - 27,500
Mike Matusow - 5,350
Sargon Ruya - 15,000
Darren Howarth - 19,200
Josh Gould - 26,200
Shaun Deeb - 22,000
Gus Hansen has been eliminated from the event by early chip leader Jason Mercier. The hands were being mucked by the dealer but I glimpsed the board of where Mercier's had obviously held against Hansen's drawtastic .
Two of the six original back room tables have broken and moved to the main tournament floor. On two of the four remaining tables, Doyle Brunson and John Phan are cleaning up as each has over 43,000 in chips early on. Brandon Cantu has managed to chip up to 32,800 and Surinder Sunar is finding some early success as well, with 33,400 in chips.
Bing-o
Michael Binger was the assassin of French player Antony Lellouche, whose stack wasn't looking too healthy at the beginning of the hand, and was deceased by the end.
Binger bet out on a flop of , and Lellouche raised all in, for what looked to be around 5,000. Call.
Lellouche:
Binger:
Turn... River... And a table tap later we're down another player.
David Williams leads out into a multiway raised pot on a flop, Brandon Adams and Karl Mahrenholz both fold before Piergiorgio D'Ancona moves all in. Williams quickly calls flipping and D'Ancona shows . The turn is the and the river the .
Williams helpfully counts his stack for me, he's on 75,000.
Mark Dickstein moves in for his last couple of thousand and Jukka Perala raises behind him. Ian Frazer makes the call before setting his opponent in on the flop. Perala makes the call and the cards look as follows:
Dickstein:
Perala:
Frazer:
The turn is the and the river the and Perala's aces hold for a 18,000 chip pot.
Alessio Isaia just got it all in preflop (the beauty of the Rebuy Chip is that you can be all in, bust, and start again) holding against an all-in short stack holding who was down to the felt for real, i.e,. no token, covered by a third player with .
The flop, turn and river all emerged in one smooth line, with all the cards on their backs and players' eyes darting like chip-hungry minnows between their opponents' hands, their own, and the board.
At the end, the helped only Isaia who eliminated one player - Aki Metsa - and regained a cushion of chips.