Seniors Sucking Out
With all-in lammers seemingly in the pot on every table we pass by, the action is intensifying here on Day 2, with bustouts occurring regularly and in rapid succession throughout the Amazon Room.
Whenever two players are pitted against one another preflop, fireworks are just a board card away, and two recent hands showed just how fickle the fates can be when it comes to poker.
First, we watched Ed Hayes move all in over the top of an opening raise to 4,800. An opponent in the next seat immediately announced himself all in as well, and when the original bettor got out of the way, Hayes was racing with 
against his opponent's 
.
The flop of 
did not improve Hayes at all, and in fact, he lost kings as an out with his opponent finding an open-ended straight draw. When the 
arrived on the turn, Hayes pimped his fist in celebration, knowing he was now a huge favorite to win a sizable pot and survive his all-in encounter. The river muddled the picture just a bit, bringing the 
on board, and while Hayes' opponent mistakenly believed he had spiked a winning set of jacks, he was still second best to Hayes' Broadway straight.
In the next hand just a few tables away, we heard one player's anguished yelp, and found a distraught senior with 
laid out in front of his stack. The board read 
, and although the aces appeared to be a good hand, they had been outran by Jim Downend's via runner-runner straight. With the come from behind win, Downend moved to over 70,000 on the day, and with short stacks going broke left and right, he is in much better position to avoid the kind of bad beat he just benefited from.