It's getting to be that time where we start scouring the field to see who's survived to this stage. The news is not good for many of the notables we haven't seen in a while:
On an flop, we watched a player check-call a bet of 650 from Rob Hollink (who appears to have been the preflop raiser). On the turn, the drew checks from both players, and Hollink was faced with a bet of 800 after the river. He called, and his opponent showed for the bluff. Hollink's was easily good, and it pushes his stack up toward the top of the pack.
Three players each paid 400 to see the flop, and they all checked as it came . On the turn, Phil Hellmuth took the lead with a small bet of 300, and the player behind him quickly raised to 600. We double-checked the plaque on the table, and indeed we were playing no-limit. The third player folded, and Hellmuth open-mucked his , too. He's had just 1,050 chips left.
Razz
As we were writing that, Hellmuth got the rest of his chips in during razz. With a seven up, Hellmuth completed, and he got the rest of his chips in right there against Owais Ahmed.
Hellmuth had started with an unimpressive ( ) , and he sounded surprised as he announced, "Ooh, I paired!" Perhaps he hadn't looked yet. In any event, his board ran out ( ) / (), and he made a nine somehow. He was live on sixth street, but Ahmed ended up with to take care of Hellmuth.
A player from Table 135 (who we'll let remain anonymous) was just eliminated, and he came over near us to collect his phone from the wall outlet. "They finally donked me out," he lamented in a southern drawl. We did the polite thing and apologized, and he continued with the story. "They got four bets in preflop with ace-queen. Made the nuts against my ace-king. I hate limit poker. There's no edge. Nobody folds."
Boom, we finally have some factual information to give you. The number 431 is indeed a good number for today's field as that many players turned up with $2,500 to wang on a tournament, as our British friends would say. Their entries have generated a prize pool worth $980,525. So close.
That money will be paid out across the final 42 spots with the bottom level being worth $4,853. The last three tables all make five figures, and the top three all earn six. First place? Just a cool $254,955 to go along with that bracelet.
The player under the gun opened with a raise, and Brandon Adams called from the button. He took two-two-one on the three drawing rounds while the raiser drew one card each time. After the first, Adams called another bet, and both men checked the next round. After the final draw, Adams decided to make a bet of his own, and his opponent check-folded.
Al "Sugar Bear" Barbieri spent the break near our table lamenting his awful last couple levels. He was down under 5,000 at the break, and he got even lower than that before he found a double. It was in 2-7 triple draw, and Barbieri chased down an to double through an opponent with .
That pot only pulled Sugar Bear back to 3,500 though, and it wasn't long before those were gone. According to Barbieri, he patted after the second draw, and the player who busted him drew two to make a seventy-six. We'll take his word for it; Barbieri vanished through the doors before we had a chance to ask a follow-up.
Michael Mizrachi raised from the button, and the big blind came along with him to the flop. The board ended up coming , and the big blind check-called bets after the flop and turn. On the river, he checked one last time, and he could not call Mizrachi's final bet. When he folded, though, Mizrachi flipped up the airball.
It was good enough to drag the pot, and it moves the Grinder up to 21,000.