In one of the first hands after the last break, Shawn Buchanan raised from under the gun over on table 281 and the action folded around to Daniel Alaei who called from the small blind. Shaun Deeb folded his big blind, thus making it heads-up to the first draw. Alaei drew two and Buchanan drew one, then Alaei check-called Buchanan's opening bet.
Alaei then drew two more cards and Buchanan stood pat; Alaei check-called Buchanan's bet again, then drew one card on the final draw. Buchanan elected to stand pat once more and then both players checked their option before Buchanan tabled , which was enough to take the pot down.
We picked up the action on the flop as the dealer spread out . Marco Traniello checked, and Matt Vengrin bet the pot. It was an all in for Traniello to call, and he did just that, rolling over for top and bottom pair. Matt Vengrin was drawing with , and he'd get there in a hurry. The dropped right on fourth street, and Vengrin pulled ahead with the straight.
Traniello needed to fill up to stay alive, but the river was a blank. Two pair go down, and Traniello has been cut like a bad hairdo.
Vengrin went on to bust Meikle Partin on the next hand as well, and he's up to 119,500 at the break.
Cyndy Violette moved the last of her money in on third street and Brian Haveson made the call, but after the cards were dealt, the most that Violette could manage was a pair of fours. She wanted a third four, but the only problem was that Haveson had taken one of them - along with his trip deuces.
Violette is no longer with us, but Haveson is storming up the counts, now on more than 130,000 in chips.
Matt Vengrin opened the pot with an under-the-gun raise, and Meikle Partin three-bet shoved from the big blind. Vengrin quickly announced an all in himself, and both men quickly patted. It was Vengrin at risk for 30,900. Partin tabled his hand first: , but Vengrin could do better. "I got an eight," he said, and he had the best eight there is. He turned up , and his eight-perfect earns him the double up.
Vengrin is up around 65,000 now, while Partin is left with just a few thousand chips.
Kevin Chance raised to 4,200 from UTG +1 before Brian Powell called from the cutoff. "Miami" John Cernuto, who only had 2,500 left, committed the rest of his chips from the big blind, so Chance and Powell went heads-up to the sidepot after the dealer spread the flop of .
Chance led out for 6,400 and Powell called, but he quickly folded after Chance fired out 14,800 on the turn of the .
Showdown
Chance:
Cernuto:
Needing any king or jack, Cernuto was sent to the rail after the blanked out on the river. At least Miami will be able to take pride in his efforts, unlike a certain highly-paid athlete that choked in the NBA Finals.