With the board reading 
, Nick Schulman checked to Greg Mueller. He bet out 6,500 which was about the size of the pot. Schulman fought back with more aggression, check raising to 19,000. Mueller thought and thought, but eventually tossed his hand away and Schulman won the pot. He's up to 112,000 while Mueller dropped back to 53,000.
![[user4144]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
In what is one of many formidable line-ups here today, Phil Laak opened for 1,200 from the hijack, Barny Boatman called the cut-off and James Keys three-bet to 3,600 on the button. Erik Cajelais called in the small blind, Laak folded, and Boatman joined the party.
Much like my early dates as a teenager, the promise of action quickly fizzled out as Keys took down the pot uncontested with a bet of 4,375 on the 
flop.
I don't think we've heard too much from him in previous updates, but Keys is highly rated young player in the UK, and someone who is destined to follow in the footstep of Jake Cody, Toby Lewis and James Mitchell by picking up a major win. He finalled this event in its inaugural year, so perhaps he'll improve on that finish this time around and reap the rewards his talent deserves.
The 2008 WSOPE Main Event Champion, John Juanda, has been eliminated early on in a bit of a cooler. He got his stack in with pocket queens but ran into Freddy Deeb's pocket kings from the next seat.
From the hijack seat, Phil Ivey raised to 1,700 and was called by Nicolas Levi on the button. The two saw the flop come down 
and Ivey checked. Levi fired 2,000 and Ivey called.
After the 
fell on the turn, Ivey checked again. Levi fired 6,200 and Ivey mucked, slipping back down to 95,000. Levi improved to 165,000.
We picked up the action on the turn with the board showing 
. Rudy Blondeau was first to go, and he put out a bet of 4,600 into a pot of about 6,500. Two seats over, his lone opponent, Dan Smith made the call.
That brought them to the 
river, and Blondeau slowly checked. Smith was already shaking his head, and he quickly checked behind to see Blondeau table the 
. Another big shake of the head, and Smith rainbow-mucked with a frown.
He's back to about 51,000 now, moving Blondeau up over 80,000.
We found Kathy Liebert nonchalantly betting out 5,000 on the river of a 
board and then sat there for a while, bopping to the private party inside her headphones. Across the table on the button, Adam Fletcher looked terribly sad. He called anyway, but he was right to be unhappy - Liebert turned over 
to Fletcher's own 
with a lower kicker (it looked like an eight) and took the pot, increasing her stack to 67,000.
Yes, you heard it; Mike Matusow is running good and even he can't believe. Okay, so he's only played one hand but it was pocket aces and he managed to take all of Jonathon Shah's 20,000 stack.
Adam Levy and Will Molson both just busted at the hands of Sam Trickett. According to Levy who stopped by to tell us what happened, the three players all got the money in preflop with Levy holding kings, Molson holding kings and Trickett holding aces.
The aces held and Trickett was able to add a nice bundle of chips to his stack. Tricket's up to about 135,000 now.
When we arrived at the table, Adrian Passfield was already all in for mere pocket change, and a further raising war between Eli Elezra (cutoff) and Filippo Candio (button) had Candio all in too. Elezra, covering him by 20,000 or so, made the call.
Check this out!
Elezra: 
Candio:
Passfield: 
"Well, it's not a bad spot," said the cheerful Passfield.
"Spades!" Elezra ordered the dealer.
Board: 
Bit of a sweat on the turn, there, but the aces held up. Passfield, who was glad he didn't pass and is still in the field, tripled up to a still very shaky 12,000, and looked rather pleased about it. Candio made a noise like a very relieved horse as he received 50,000 back, only slightly less than he'd put in; and Elezra walked off but will return to a 70,000 stack.
From middle position, Kevin MacPhee opened to 1,600, and he found a call from big blind Antoine Arnault.
The two men went heads u to a flop of 
, and the action went check-check. On the 
turn, Arnault led out with a big overbet, 7,000 chips. MacPhee double-checked his hole cards and splashed the call into the pot. The river filled out the board, and Arnault moved all in for his last 15,200. The call from MacPhee came quickly.
Arnault showed up 
for eights full, and MacPhee nodded and counted out his losses. He's been more then halved, dropping to 23,000 while doubling Arnault.
