Ihar Soika's stay at the top was short lived due entirely to a cooler.
It happened when China's Chang He opened for 8,300 under the gun and action folded to Soika, who three-bet to 25,700 from the big blind. He responded by sliding out a big four-bet to approximately 115,000, and Soika thought long and hard before five-betting all in. He, who had 326,800 total, quickly called off.
Soika:
He:
It was a brutal cooler for Soika considering he ran into the second-biggest stack at the table. There would be no tomfoolery in the hand as the board ran out clean.
"Yeah," he celebrated while a clearly frustrated Soika sent all but 10,000 of his chips to his left.
A short-stacked Jack Salter got his chips all in preflop and found himself at risk and behind against Martin Finger.
Finger:
Salter:
The flop prompted both players to say they'd be happy with a chop, but that didn't happen as the appeared on the turn followed by the on the river. Finger's hand held and that was all she wrote for Salter, who fired two bullets in this tournament.
Tobias Reinkemeier shoved from the big blind for 39,800 over a button raise from Steve O'Dwyer, who had put in 5,800. O'Dwyer called with after thinking awhile, but Reinkemeier had him dominated with . The board came , and Reinkemeier doubled up.
Byron Kaverman bet 11,500 from the small blind on a flop, and Christoph Vogelsang called in the cutoff. Kaverman checked the turn, and Vogelsang bet 18,000. Kaverman called, and he quickly checked when the made a four-straight on the river. Vogelsang slid in enough chips to put Kaverman all in, giving the American pause. He thought things over for a minute or two before sliding his cards muckward.
One of the world's best tournament players, Dan Smith, became Remko Rinkema's latest victim in 'The Amazing Poker Quiz'. We asked Smith a ton of random questions, so check out the video to see how he did.
In the last hand of Level 12, Vladimir Dobrovolskii got his stack of 90,000 or so all in preflop and was at risk against Ben Heath.
Heath:
Dobrovolskii:
Dobrovolskii was out in front, but not after the flop delivered Heath a pair of aces. Neither the turn nor river helped Dobrovolskii, and he exited just shy of the first break of the day.