During our latest walk around the Brasilia Room we spotted some more recognizable players. These players are all at it right now, making the tournament just a little bit tougher to win. Anthony "holdplz" Spinella has joined the table of Justin Bonomo and Scott Seiver. Calling it the Table of Death is a little over the top at this point, and even Table of Doom is exaggerating, but for a $1,000 event it's quite remarkable.
Mimi Tran was down to her last 575 chips and folded for quite some time while waiting patiently for a hand. She found one in middle position where she went all in over the top of the 150 raise from the player under the gun. He called and turned over . Tran was happy to see she was ahead with .
The board of did not improve either hand and Tran doubled up.
That's right, Will Failla is still in his seat but he has no chips in front of him. "I'm not leaving" he laughs, "I already busted but I'm not leaving, nobody is taking my seat!". James Dempsey and Athanasios Polychronopoulos are at the same table and laugh about it. Dempsey laughs "Another scandal" to which Failla comments "No, no scandal. I'm just not leaving". We're not sure what to make of this but we are sure Failla is sitting in the ten seat with no chips in front of him and it doesn't look like he's leaving.
We arrived as Yuk Mui raised to 600 from the small blind and action folded to Antonio Esfandiari, who went all in for his remaining 1,450. Yuk called and tabled with Esfandiari holding .
The board fell giving his opponent the nut flush and Esfandiari is out early in level 2.
We now have at least 1,516 players in the tournament. Well, they technically aren't all in the tournament anymore since a lot of them have already burned through the 3,000 starting stack. We've seen bad beats, coolers, set-ups and outright creational plays. It's the World Series of Poker in all her glory here today.
Ari Engel just opened the button to 125 and the small blind immediately folded. The shortstack in the big blind made the call however and they took a look at the flop: . The big blind checked to Engel who opted to check behind.
That was the last time we saw Engel checking in this hand though. The turn brought the and the big blind check-called 175. The river completed the board with the and this time Engel bet 400 when it was checked to him. The big blind called but had to muck when Engel showed his . The big blind has to continue his tournament with just 575 in chips, while Engel is up to more than 6,600.
Spotted in the field is 11th place finisher from Event #4: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em (Six Handed), Greg Hobson. The action folded to the hijack who called 25 which prompted the cutoff and button to come along. Hobson, the small blind, and the big blind checked their option.
The flop of prompted checks all around. Hobson led for 75 on the turn which was good enough to take the pot.
We have the number 4 (Parkinson) and number 14 (O'Shea) of the Irish all time money list here in Brasilia. Also in attendance is the number 16 from the German all time money list (Brinkmann) and the numbers 254 (Ebanks), 380 (Katz) and 445 (Salsberg) from the United States all time money list.