We only arrived at the aftermath, but a big all-in confrontation had just completed involving Alexey Rybin and David Paredes that saw the latter lose all of his big stack to Rybin.
Rybin now sits with more than 550,000, the biggest stack in the room at the moment with about 110 players remaining.
Paul Pierce raised to 4,000 from the cutoff seat and George Danzer called from the button. A player in the small blind then reraised to 18,000, and both Pierce and Danzer called.
The flop came . The player in the small blind pushed all in, Pierce called, but Danzer stepped aside.
Pierce had (a pair of kings) while his opponent tabled (a pair of aces). The turn was the and river the , and the all-in player survived.
Ramzi Jelassi, who took down the EPT Prague Main Event last December for over a million dollars, checked on a flop of . A second player checked as well, Daniel Alaei fired out 6,000, and Morten Stenheim called. Jelassi moved all in for 23,600, and the action folded to Stenheim, who called.
Jelassi:
Stenheim:
Jelassi's two pair held as the turn and river both produced black sevens, and he doubled to 75,000 chips.
After a series of bets and raised, Fabian Brandes was all in and at risk preflop against Alexander Kostritsyn.
Brandes:
Kostritsyn:
The flop gave Kostitsyn a pair of queens and a gut-shot straight draw, and the on the turn gave him a leading two pair, but the completed the board, giving Brandes aces up.
He doubled to 44,000 chips, while Kostritsyn fell to 12,000.
The Alexey Rybin express keeps right on rolling, as we just saw him take another huge pot off of start-of-day-2 chip leader Matt O'Donnell to add further to his chip-leading stack as Level 12 nears its close.
We arrived on the turn to see a board and O'Donnell firing 42,000 into the middle. Rybin called the bet, and Nacho Barbero folded from the button.
The pot was already big when the river brought the and O'Donnell pushed out another bet of around 100,000. Rybin sat quietly for just a moment, then said he was reraising the pot and O'Donnell quickly folded, preserving just 40,000 or so behind.
Rybin tabled his cards — for the nut straight — and collected the big pot. O'Donnell managed to double up once right before the break, but he's still sitting with less than a third of his starting stack.
Before the break, Keith Lehr and Emil Patel were heads up on a flop of . Patel called.
Both players checked when the turned, and the completed the board. Lehr checked, Patel fired out 18,600, and Lehr tank-called. Patel shook his head, then mucked when Lehr tabled for jacks and threes.
A short-stacked Alexander Condon raised the pot to 8,400 from early position, and it folded around to a player on the button who called. Yevgeniy Timoshenko then sat in thought for about a half-minute in the small blind before declaring he was reraising the pot — a bet of 36,000.
The big blind quickly released his hand, Condon called all in for about 25,000 total, and after tanking for several minutes the button player said he was reraising all in for his stack of about 68,000 and Timoshenko quickly called.
Timoshenko tabled , Condon showed , and the table expressed some surprise when the button player showed he had aces as well with .
The board came and Condon was eliminated as the other two chopped the pot.