Eric Froehlich and Paul Griem got it all in before the flop, Greim beginning the hand with the shorter stack of around 300,000. He was in good shape with , but Froehlich was looking to spoil the party with .
And spoil it he would, in most exciting fashion. The board? . That's too many hearts for Griem, his kings flushed down the drain by Froehlich. With the knockout pot, E-Fro chips over a big milestone and into second place with 1.26 million. Griem is left with no chips, but he will take home more than $25,000 in cash.
Kenneth Coppens was all in preflop with against the of Darryl Ronconi. Unfortunately for Coppens, the board ran out and Ronconi continued his hot streak by making a flush.
While Coppens hits the rail dejected, Ronconi has a chip stack worth 1.6 million.
Vanessa Peng opened the pot with a raise, and Pierre Neuville three-bet to 100,000 from the hijack seat. Peng shoved all in for 343,000, and Neuville made the call for about half his own stack.
Showdown
Peng:
Neuville:
Peng was in this exact spot earlier against Ben Volpe, and he won the race with pocket queens to knock Peng down the counts. This time, though, Peng got some Big Slick revenge, pairing up twice on the board to notch a double up.
She's back to 750,000 now, while Neuville drops down to 445,000.
Garrett Adelstein got almost 300,000 into the middle before the flop with pocket tens, and he was flipping for his tournament life against Christian Kruel and his king-queen.
Kruel paired up, and Adelstein's pocket pair betrayed him, sealing his elimination in 25th place. Kruel is up around 700,000 now as the stacks start to become a bit polarized.
While we were still cobbling together the new table draw, both Barry Greenstein and Joe Patrick were relieved of their very short stacks, and we're already down to 25 players as the action continues to roll along briskly.
Isaac Baron opened to 26,000, and Vitaly Lunkin three-bet shoved for 220,000. It was about half of Baron's chips, but he made a good call with his ahead of Lunkin's .
Baron's call was rewarded as the dealer spread the board: . Trip aces will do it, and Lunkin has been eliminated in 28th place, good for the last of the $21,311 payouts. For Baron, the knockout boosts his stack up to 635,000 or so.
Our field has shrunken to 27, and they're racking up and redrawing as we speak. We'll be back to tell you how the tables look in a moment.
After a long lull to start the day, the action has picked up to a torrid pace. We've dropped a half-dozen players in the last orbit or so, and Wesley Pantling was the latest victim, exiting in 29th place.