There's a bit of a discrepancy between chips on tables here, with the Secret Table very definitely the more chipped up of the two.
Secret Table currently has 5.6 million chips on it of a total 10 million with eight runners to fight over it; Obvious Table (Centre Court) has 4.4 million between nine players, including all three of our shortest stacks, Tony Cousineau (128,000), Doyle Brunson (174,000) and Ram Vaswani (269,000).
If only those were cash chips
We cannot possibly comment on whether this is due to him having wanged all his money already or whether he's just a good old-fashioned cheapskate -- but either way, now that he's well into the money, we can reveal that Jason Mercier, upon deciding to come to London to play the WSOPE, decided that London hotels were just too expensive and instead is spending these few weeks sleeping on a buddy's couch. Just thought we should say.
Upstairs in the Secret Room, things have quietened down a little.
One gent who's feeling cheery about things though is Praz Bansi. Not long after knocking our Sandor Demjan, he took a small chunk out of Antoine Saout as well. Saout raised to 32,000 and to his immediate left, Bansi made it 95,000 to go. Everyone else folded, and after some long minutes of dwelling from Saout, who we actually feared may have fallen asleep at points during that time -- anyway, eventually Saout folded too, and Bansi was up to 720,000 while the sleepy Frenchman dropped to around 250,000.
As I was writing out Sandor Demjan's exit, another all-in was unfolding on Centre Court:
Flop:
Markus Ristola =
Thomas Bichon =
For the purpose of entertainment, the devil on my shoulder was requesting running tens, but although I was half right, the turn and river were ultimately anti-climatic and Ristola took the pot.
Sandor Demjan
With Praz Bansi raising it up preflop from early position and Sandor Demjan defending his big blind, the two players saw a flop. More checks than Prague as both tapped the table for a turn and river where Sandor suddenly announced all-in. "Can you can count it?" asked Bansi with his eyebrows raised, but before the chips had barely been collated, Bansi made the call and quickly tabled . Demjan had .
"Good luck," Demjan said stoically and in an accent befitting that of a Bond villain.
Barry Shulman
All the chips flew in preflop with short stack Craig Burgess in piping hot water with versus . Bill Clinton lookalike Barry Shulman was the man holding the snowmen, and although the flop looked safe, they showed signs of melting on the turn. On the river, however, out popped a to fulfill the straight. The crowd gasped, Burgess looked stunned, and Shulman grabbed his heart as if Monica Lewinsky had entered the room.
A blind on blind raising war erupted between Jason Mercier (small blind) and Thomas Bichon (big). We're not certain how the action went, but there was well over 100,000 in the pot already, and an additional 100,000 in front of Mercier.
Bichon seems to have called the clock in himself, and he eventually folded with just a few seconds to spare. "Was it a mistake?" he asked afterwards, "Would you call if I say all in?" In an attempt to steer clear of the ESPN cameras, who for some reason tolerate railers in the shot but not bloggers, we had to duck away so we didn't hear Mercier's reply. We did, however, hear Bichon call across the table at him, "You're a sick gambler." Indeed.
Saar Wilf
Saar Wilf has shot up towards the top of the poker charts. He's currently lying in second and is only one of two players to have surpassed the seven figure mark with 1,158,000 in chips.
Little action at the moment, although James Akenhead just pushed (or thereabouts - 305,000 to be precise) over the top of Sandor Demjan's under-the-gun open of 38,000. Demjan let his neighbour take the pot.
turn and 
river were ultimately anti-climatic and Ristola took the pot.
flop. More checks than Prague as both tapped the table for a 
. Demjan had 
.
versus 
. Bill Clinton lookalike Barry Shulman was the man holding the snowmen, and although the 
turn. On the river, however, out popped a 
to fulfill the straight. The crowd gasped, Burgess looked stunned, and Shulman grabbed his heart as if Monica Lewinsky had entered the room.
