Chris Oliver limped into the pot under the gun, and Steve Zolotow looked confused. "He limps in," Zolotow said to himself. "I gotta figure out what that means. I haven't seen one of those before." Zolotow called after the monologue, and Tom Dwan, Erick Lindgren (small blind), and Mike Watson (big blind) all joined them in the pot.
The flop came out , and action checked all the way through to the turn. Watson took the betting lead now, folding Oliver and Zolotow quickly. Dwan raised to 2,000 though, Lindgren cold-called, and Watson called the extra bet to see the fill out the board. Dwan bet again, and both opponents once again called. Watson was stuck in the middle.
Dwan:
Lindgren:
Dwan nearly scoops, but Lindgren's flush was just better, allowing him to take the high half the pot. Both he and Dwan are around 33,000 after chopping up Watson's chips.
When we reached Table 119, the board had already been dealt , and Erik Seidel faced a raise from Carlos Mortensen. Seidel tank-called.
"Nice call," Mortensen needled, turning over for Broadway. Seidel mucked, and Mortensen raked in the pot.
The very next hand, John Juanda raised from middle position, Seidel called on button, and Mortensen called in the big blind. The flop fell , Mortensen led out, and Juanda raised. Both Seidel and Mortensen called.
The turn was the , Mortensen checked, Juanda bet, and both Seidel and Mortensen called. The three repeated the action after the fell on the river, and the hands were opened.
Juanda: - Low
Seidel: - High and Low
Mortensen: - Nada
Allen Kessler is back to his starting stack after dragging a little pot from Richard Ashby. The two men were heads up as the board ran out , and Kessler was the one doing the calling. He called bets on the flop and turn, and the river went check-check to showdown.
Kessler flipped up to take the pot, and he's back to 30,500 now.
We picked up a four-handed flop as the dealer spread out , and Hasan Habib checked from the blinds. Vitaly Lunkin (who we infer was the preflop raiser) put out a bet, Scott Seiver folded, Dan Shak called, and Lunkin called as well to bring the three live players to the turn. Lunkin bet again and found the same two callers, and the action repeated on the river.
At showdown, Lunkin's was good enough to take the high half with the nut flush, and Habib and Shak both got quartered, each showing down an ace-duece to earn only a small rebate on their action.
The numbers are in. Or at least the number of players. Our field size has capped off at 202 players now that registration is closed. The last player to register before the window slammed shut? Why, Erik Seidel, of course.
The prize pool is locked in at $1,898,800, and we'll have the breakdown of the payouts posted shortly.
Steve Zolotow opened with a raise, and he found calls from both Tom Dwan and George Lind III to go three-handed to the flop.
It came , and Zolotow's continuation bet was called by both opponents to bring them to the turn. Zolotow bet again, Dwan raised, and both Lind III and Zolotow called the two bets. The filled out the board, and Dwan got one more bet in with both opponents making the call.
"Durrrr" tabled , and the straight is the nuts. Dwan gets the pot, and his starting stack has already grown to about 37,000 here in his first orbit.
On adjacent tables, we've also spotted Vitaly Lunkin, Alex Kravchenko, Scott Seiver, Erik Seidel, Shaun Deeb, John Juanda, Josh Arieh and Carlos Mortensen.
We've ticked over 200 players in this event, but only just. The board shows 200 flat right now, and we've just spotted Tom Dwan joining our field. We'll have the official number for you as soon as it's been verified by the staff.