Just as we were getting counts, a big pot was brewing between Matthew Jarvis and Tommy Vedes with the board reading . Jarvis had set his opponent all in for his last 10,000 with about 15,000 already in the pot and Vedes tanked for a good six minutes before finally calling off his stack.
Jarvis tapped the table, said "Good call," and mucked his hand and Vedes showed to win the pot. A remarkable recovery from just 4,000 at the 400/800/100 level.
From the hijack seat, Tommy Vedes raised to 2.7. Roman Urban was in the cutoff seat and reraised all in for 12,400. Play folded back around to Vedes and he thought for a few moments and then tossed his hand away.
Vedes chip stack: 31,400
On the next hand, Vedes opened to 2,500. Karim Jomeen reraised from the button to 9,200. Vedes folded when action got back around to him.
Vedes chip stack: 28,800
On the very next hand, Vedes opened again to 2,500. Jutis David Brogan called from his position in the big blind and the two players saw the flop come down . Both checked to see the fall on the turn. Brogan checked and Vedes fired 3,500. Brogan mucked his hand and Vedes won the pot.
Dominic Wells opened to 3,000 from the button, and James Tomlin made the call from the small blind to go heads up to the flop.
It came , and Tomlin checked. When Wells continued out with another 5,000 chips, however, Tomlin check-raised all in for about 28,000 total. It was just about as much as Wells had left, and he would take his pause. He leaned back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, deep in thought. His cell phone rang in his jacket pocket, breaking the silence for a minute as he scrambled to shut it off. Fifteen seconds later, it rang again, and Wells once again had to break his train of thought to dispense with the annoyance. Finally, he said, "All right, you can have it," and he open-mucked .
Tomlin obliged by showing the , complimenting Wells on a "very, very nice fold." It was indeed, and that fold has likely kept Wells from bubbling this event.
The chips went flying in like players into a rugby scrum on a board, Xiang Tan showed to Richard Allen's . No case seven on the turn or river and Tan jumped up to 92,700.
Allen was crippled with barely any chips left, and was eliminated soon after as we enter the bubble territory.
Just as WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel announced that there was 55 players left and instructed all dealers to stop after the hand they were on has been completed, three separate tables hand all-in situations. Song Lee saw his tournament come to an end on the outermost table in the room over by the pot while the other two tables ran out their hands. Lee had to wait because if one of these other at-risk players lost, Lee would actually get to chop the 54th-place prize money.
The first player ended up doubling, but November Niner Matthew Jarvis was still at risk with the against the for Karim Jomeen.
The board ran out and Lee watched as Jarvis came from a dominated position to double up and stay alive. He now has about 22,000 chips.
Effel turned to Lee and said, much like a doctor going out to tell some bad news to family and friends of a patient, "I'm sorry, but you're actually 55th. If any of these players would have lost, you would've chopped the money, I'm sorry."
That said, Song Lee is the official bubble boy here for Event #3 and everyone else is all in the money.
The super short stacked Manig Loeser pushed all-in from UTG for barely two big blinds and found an auto call from Matthew Jarvis' big blind holding of , Loeser flipped but the board came and he was out first player out in the money, it's his second cash after also going deep in the 6-max.
Everyone's in the money now, including everyone's favorite weapon of mass destruction, Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler. Kessler had been tied with Shawn Buchanan at the top of the 2010 WSOP cash list, each man with 8 apiece coming into today. This 9th cash puts Kessler in the lead, and he's just one away from tying Nikolay Evdakov's 2008 record-setting ten cashes.
We'll go out on a limb and guess that the Chainsaw won't be entering the £10,000 Heads-Up event tomorrow, so the Main Event will likely be his final shot to tie Evdakov's record.