The eliminations have been coming in waves all day, and that hasn't slowed down since we came back from dinner. Of the 2,161 players to start the day, only 530 remain according to the clock. With 243 player making the money, and three more levels still to be played, it is likely that we will get down to the money today.
A player moved all in preflop, and Jaime Kerstetter was the only caller. She turned over and was well ahead of her opponent's . The board ran out , and Kerstetter's aces held up, sending her opponent to the rail
A player limped from early position and Nicolas Vaca-Rondon raised it up to 1,050. The rest of the table folded and action went back onto the limper. He called and they saw a flop.
The flop came . The limper checked and Vaca-Rondon bet out quickly. He made a bet of 1,250. His opponent made the call. The turn came the . This time Vaca-Rondon's opponent bet out 1,600. Rondon was not happy that he could not call and mucked. Vaca-Rondon used up all his yellow T1,000 chips in the hand and went down to 9,000 in greens, blacks, and purples.
Charlie Kassatly raised to 1,050 preflop, Amanda Musumeci called, and everyone else folded. The flop came , and Musumeci checked. Kassatly continued for 2,050, and Musumeci called again. The turn was the , and this time Kassatly announced, "All in." He had Musumeci covered, and she thought for a minute before calling and turning over for top pair. Kassatly, however, held for top pair with a higher kicker, and Musumeci would need help. The river was the , and Kassatly won the pot, busting Musumeci out of the tournament.
We did not catch the entire hand but we did see Tom Schneider sending most of his stack over to his opponent. His opponent had a set of fives on the river and that was good enough to get most of Schneider's stack. Schneider went down to a measly count of 2,500.
Jake Balsiger came over to the Brasilia room with a fairly light bag of chips, but it looks like he has been doing plenty of work at his new table. We walked by his table recently, and saw that he has stacks on stacks on stacks. When we counted all up, it appeared that he had about 50,000, which this early on in the day is right up there with the chip leaders.
Facing a preflop raise to 800, Kara Scott three-bet to 2000. The initial raiser then pushed forward enough chips to put Scott all in, effectively a raise to 5,525. Scott thought for a moment, then called for all her chips. She turned over , and her opponent held . The board ran out , giving Scott two pair and a double up.