We witnessed a pot with Mike Leah, who seems to be accumulating chips as fast as he is final tables. Leah opened the betting for 400 in early position, and was raised around 1700 (all-in) by his neighbor on the left. Leah snap called, showing .
The board came , and Leah's queens held up for yet another knockout, increasing his chip stack to around 24000.
And that means that we've already lost more than half the players who started out just six hours a go. From the 2,105 who began at noon, 1,030 are still in.
Darren Rabinowitz pushed all in for 1,575 on a flop of . He got two callers. The turn came the . Both remaining players checked. The river came the the first player checked, the second bet 1,500 and the first called.
Rabinowitz said, "Good luck guys" even before the other two turned their hands over. He couldn't win as he had for a missed straight draw. He did not realize how far dead he was even on the flop as one opponent had for the flopped nuts, and the second guy had the nuts of for turned quads.
Griffin Benger looked away from his phone for a mili second and found pocket queens in the big blind. There was more than enough action before him with a raise to 425 from the under plus two and a three-bet from the hijack to 1,125. Benger shoved for 7,625 and the first raiser folded. The hijack thought for a second and made the call.
Benger tabled and was in a race situation against the hijack's . What started out as a fair race was not so much anymore after the flop: . The on the turn sealed the deal for Benger and the was just there for good measures.
Well, the Dutch aren't doing to good; both Vincent van der Fluit and Pim de Goede are nowhere to be found. Danish pro Mickey Petersen is well below average while the man with the Irish passport is doing ok for himself.
It's something like the Kansas City Shuffle, but than with poker. Bounahra just gave a big high five to Antonio Esfandiari after doubling up from the big blind. We missed the action and were only alerted by Bounahra's shout. We speeded over and could just write down that he had and three hearts on the table. Bounahra's daughter is also playing a few tables over, but didn't get involved with the celebrations.