A player in middle position raised to 700 to open the pot, and Eli Elezra called from the button.
The two of them took a flop, and Elezra called a 1,500-chip continuation bet. His opponent bet another 2,400 on the turn, but now Elezra raised the pot. That's all he had to say. His opponent's cards hit the muck rather quickly, and Elezra has moved up to about 33,000.
We've got a Tom "Durrrr" Dwan with us now, and we just watched him play the first two hands he played. On the first, he called a raise to 600, then folded to a bet of 1,650 on a flop.
On the next hand, Dwan opened to 900 from middle position, and Nick Schulman called from the button to go heads up to the flop. It came , and Dwan continued out with another 1,600. Schulman called, and they'd check it down behind the turn and river.
Dwan showed for Broadway, and Schulman's was good enough to take the low half of the pot.
Chop it up, and Dwan is just below his starting stack with about 14,600 now.
Mitch Schock has had quite the 2011 WSOP. He has five cashes totaling $406,018, three final tables, and a bracelet for his win in Event #39 $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em/Omaha. His performance has earned him 364.81 points on the 2011 Player-of-the-Year Leaderboard, which is currently good enough for 9th place.
Unfortunately for Schock, he'll have to wait for the Main Event to earn some more POY points as he just busted from this tournament after running jacks full into kings full.
With a board reading , Ted Forrest checked from the big blind and Nacho Barbero bet 3,900. Forrest then check-raised to 7,900 and Barbero shot back in his chair. He clearly wasn't expecting resistance and seemed perplexed as to what Forrest might have.
Barbero sat in the tank for a couple minutes before making the call and tabling . His full house was good as Forrest's cards wound up in the muck.
With 1,750 in the pot and a board reading , Sammy Farha bet 1,500 only to have Bill Chen pot it from the hijack. It was 4,750 more to Farha, but he thought better of it and laid down his hand. The 2003 World Series of Poker runner-up is hovering right around the starting stack of 15,000.
The number on the big board has been stuck at 352 runner for quite some time, so we'll go ahead and call that the unofficial number of entrants. The staff is triple-checking the paperwork as we speak, and we should have some official numbers -- including the prize pool -- shortly.
Just before the break, Jean-Robert's already short-stack was halved again when he tangled up in a pot with a player we don't recognize.
Bellande opened to 700 before the flop, and he bet all in for 625 after the came. He showed up , and his opponent was woking with . The turn filled in the straight for Mr. Opponent, and the river means Bellande will only get half of the low with his matching ace-four.