Brian Powell raised, and Arnaud Mattern, with 5,000 of his 12,000 remaining chips already in the pot in the form of an ante and a small blind, called all in. On their backs.
Powell:
Mattern:
Board:
The sixes held, and a smiling Mattern doubled to 37,000.
Next hand, Mattern pushed from the button and got looked up by Anthony Newman in the big blind. It looked bad this time...
Mattern:
Newman:
But wait! Board: ("Woah!" came the chorus at the table, "Chip and a chair!")
Mattern doubled up again, to 83,000 this time. He turned to the dealer.
"If I make the final table, you're invited to the party, and you can bring all your friends and family."
Viktor Blom raised to 19,000 and Daniel Steinberg reraised from the small blind to 70,000. On the last hand, Steinberg three-bet Blom's preflop raise from the big blind and then showed the . This time, Blom made the call.
The flop came down and Steinberg fired 80,000. Blom made the call and the turn came the . Steinberg checked and Blom fired out 130,000. Steinberg folded his hand and Blom hit the one-million mark.
We picked up the action on the flop, but we can infer that Bojan Gledovic was the preflop raiser from under the gun, and Phil Ivey had come along from the big blind.
The dealer rolled out , and Ivey check-called a bet of 45,000. The on the turn drew another check from Ivey, and Gledovic made it 100,000 straight. Ivey gave him a stare for the ages, nearly motionless. After a minute or more, he nonchalantly slid a tower of red chips out to match the bet.
The filled out the board, and Ivey checked again. Gledovic thought it over for a minute this time, but he decided to just show down his for free. Ivey nodded slowly, a slight frown crossing his face as he placed his cards face-down for the dealer to muck.
He has dropped out of the top ten for the first time in recent memory as Gledovic overtakes him:
Barny Boatman is in a spot of bother now - he's found himself rather short, on just 150,000 or so after a couple hands didn't really go his way.
First, Boatman made it 57,000 to an 18,000 opening raise from Andrew Pantling. But Pantling made it 293,000, putting Boatman all in, and while tablemate Nicolas Levi was having an argument with a security guard about why Michel Abecassis was not allowed to watch, (for some reason railers are banned at the corner table), Boatman folded. Down to 170,000. Pantling, incidentally, up to 860,000.
Next hand, Boatman opened to 20,000 and Dan Fleyshman called in the cutoff to see a flop. Boatman checked and then folded to a 40,000 bet from Fleyshman. Fleyshman 640,000. Boatman now 150,000 and really not looking very happy at all.
Down to around 18 big blinds, Barny Boatman was searching for spots to make a move, so when David Peters immediately raised the button to 19,000. Boatman confidently three-bet to 93,000 from the big blind, leaving himself around 50,000 behind.
Peters dwelt momentarily before announcing all in, and Boatman made the near obligatory call.
Boatman:
Peters:
Board:
And with the two from Timbuktu, Boatman doubled through to 300,000.
"Home field advantage," smiled Nicolas Levi.
"I've waited a long time for that hand," replied Boatman.
We've got 90 minutes of Day 4 behind us, and they've been packed with action. We've already said goodbye to Greg Mueller (22nd), Jani Sointula (21st), and Thomas Bichon (20th). We just about lost Bichon's fellow Frenchman Arnaud Mattern immediately thereafeter. The gregarious pro ran his queens into the aces of James Bord, and he could not catch up. Mattern turned his remaining 12,000 chips into more than 80,000 in two hands, though, then doubled again to get back to a very impressive 184,000. He's still alive (somehow) as this first break hits.
That big pot vaulted Bord up into the lead, taking him up over 900,000. Viktor Blom is on a tear, though, and he soon retook that lead, becoming just the second player to crest the million-chip mark. He's nearly got a final-table-average chip stack, though we wouldn't expect to see him coasting to get there. Phil Ivey has been up and down, as high as 775,000 in the early going. His table mates are not backing down today, though, and Ivey's taken a few hits to knock him back under 500,000.
The remaining 19 players have been sent out for a twenty-minute break. We'll get exact chip counts when they clear the tables.