First heads-up blood (we imagine a nosebleed where chips come out of both players' nostrils) went to Jeffrey Lisandro, who limped in on the button and then took it down with a 45,000 bet on the flop.
After a few hands's worth of unanswered button raises and the occasional limped button and raised big blind, we got to see another flop; this hand also went Lisandro's way.
Joe Serock made the opening raise to 60,000, which Lisandro flat-called in the big blind. No further chips made their way into the pot, though, as they checked down the board. LIsandro revealed for a flopped straight, and it was good to take the pot.
As if the players didn't know what else they got for winning a WSOP event besides a truckload of cash, the Bracelet has been laid on the table to spur them on. It's actually turned away from them and facing the sizeable rail, though, for maximum crowd effect.
After all this drama, the final three hands of Willie Tann's tournament were played not with the chip leader but against Jeffrey Lisandro. Lisandro won all three - the first two small ones taken with a bet on the flop, but the third was a preflop confrontation, with small blind Tann raising pot (committing his 140k) and Lisandro nodding the assent.
Tann:
Lisandro:
Tann shook his head slowly as the flop came giving his opponent two pair, and the turn did nothing to improve his hand while the river rubbed it in by making Lisandro a full house to send him to the rail. Still, back to back finals this year at the WSOPE - pretty impressive.
The Serock raising rampage continued, as Jeffrey Lisandro made it 60,000 from the button, but backed down when Joe Serock re-popped to 200,000 from the small blind. Lisandro gave him a look that was mostly sadness, and folded.
In fact, almost every hand since the elimination of Jeff Madsen has featured Serock as the primary aggressor, and it's showing in the stack sizes.
With 910,000, Joe Serock has almost double the stack of Jeffrey Lisandro (480k) and more than double Willie Tann (400k). He raised the next two hands after eliminating Madsen before giving Tann a walk for which he got a handshake and a "Thank you sir!"
Moments later, however, and a small pot came back his way from Tann, making him the first player to crack the million chip mark with 1,100,000.
After bouncing back like a squash ball several times, Jeff Madsen finally succumbed to Joe Serock, calling his 84k preflop raise and then moving in on a flop of . Serock made the call immediately with which held against Madsen's , although the turn gave him an ever so slightly higher flush draw which kept the crowd guessing. The river is the last card Madsen will see in this bracelet event, and he exits a very respectable fourth.
...Or he did have the nuts, before he dropped them all over the floor. There was a short pause as Tann and a waitress attempted to clean up the whole bag's worth of cashew nuts that had found themselves scattered all over the place under the final table.
The stacks are getting very small in relation to the blinds, but none of these chaps are going anywhere just yet.
Jeff Madsen got his last in from the big blind to a raise from Jeffrey Lisandro in the small; "Bad hand," announced Lisandro, while, "F***," was the only word we distinguished of what Madsen said. He looked cheerful though.
Madsen:
Lisandro:
Board:
Madsen flopped top two pair, and although Lisandro had a myriad straight outs none of them came in. Madsen is back in the game on 210,000.
Jeff Madsen just can't get the better of Joe Serock today, and the last hand gave the latter in the big blind when Madsen had raised to 85k in the small with . Faced with 137k more to call, Madsen did so preflop and then looked ruefully at his opponent's hand as the flop brought him hope in the form of a pair of Jacks: , but extra pairs failed to materialise on the turn and river.
Madsen falls back into bowl-of-rice territory with 100k while Serock is back up there with 450k.
![[user46392]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
flop.
board. LIsandro revealed 
for a flopped straight, and it was good to take the pot.
turn did nothing to improve his hand while the 
, although the 
turn gave him an ever so slightly higher flush draw which kept the crowd guessing. The 
river is the last card Madsen will see in this bracelet event, and he exits a very respectable fourth.
