The remaining players are currently taking their first 25-minute break of the day.
The first bit of exciting news to occur during the first level of play today is Ben Lamb's ascension to the top of the WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard. With his deep run in this years Main Event he has officially overtaken Phil Hellmuth for the top position. Lamb is also currently sitting second in chips with 5,600,000.
The only person ahead of Lamb is Phil Collins, who has a commanding chip lead over the field with 7,660,000. Bryan Devonshire rounds out the top three with 4,900,000.
The first level of play today saw casualties of names such as Rupert Elder, Guiseppe Pastura, and Peter Feldman. The remaining 114 players will return after this break for one more two-hour level of play before the dinner break.
It was recently brought to our attention that one of the remaining players in today's field is none other than Chamath Palihapitiya, former VP of Growth, Mobile and International for Facebook. Back in June, Palihapitiya left Facebook to launch the Social+Capital Partnership. In the meantime, it appears he's found time to play a little poker.
"Chamath Palihapitiya is the Vice President of User Growth, Mobile and International at Facebook and, since 2008, has led a cross functional team responsible for driving the growth of Facebook's userbase through product, virality, marketing and internationalization efforts on both the web and mobile. Prior to his current role at Facebook, Chamath oversaw Facebook Platform from its launch in 2007 and led the team that built and initially scaled Facebook’s online advertising product. Chamath joined Facebook from The Mayfield Fund, a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley where he led consumer Internet, advertising and technology investments. Prior to Mayfield, Chamath spent five years with AOL in roles of increasing responsibility, culminating in his position as the Vice President and General Manager of AIM and ICQ. Chamath began his career as a derivatives trader before leaving finance to work for Internet music pioneers Winamp and Spinner.com. Chamath grew up in Canada and graduated first class honors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo."
Palihapitiya is currently sitting on a stack of 700,000.
Table 338 just broke, its players scattering to find their assigned seats elsewhere in what is becoming an increasingly sparse Amazon Room. Erick Lindgren was quicker than most, rushing over to his new table and slipping into Seat 5 just in time to receive a hand and raise to 55,000 from under the gun.
A couple of players folded, then Aaron Ruppert arrived. He'd also been broken from Lindgren's same table, and as it turned out Lindgren had accidentally taken Ruppert's seat. Since there had been a couple of folds, the action stood, and after everyone else folded Lindgren took the small pot to move to 1.04 million.
"Push it there," said a grinning Lindgren to the dealer as he rose to move over to his assigned Seat 8.
[Removed:147] got the last 320,000 of his chips into the pot in bad shape. His ran right into the of big stack JP Kelly, and there would be no help on board. The flop left him drawing dead, in fact, and the turn and river have sent him to the exit.
On a flop of , Bryan Devonshire had Seth Davies all in and at risk.
Devonshire:
Davies:
Devonshire faded a diamond on the turn (), but it gave Davies outs to a chop. The on the river was a brick however, and Davies hit the rail. Devonshire remains among the chip leaders, boasting a stack of 4.9 million chips.
Someone at the table opened the pot with a raise to 54,000, and both Doc Sands and Benjamin Logan called from their respective small and big blinds, three-handed to the flop.
It came , and Logan check-called a bet from the raiser while Sands ducked out. The turn went check-check, and the river saw the same action repeat.
At showdown, Logan could only show for the Royal Flush. That's all. We can't even remember if the words "Royal Flush" are supposed to be capitalized or not, that's how infrequently we've seen it happen. It's the first of Logan's career, and it comes in the WSOP Main Event, boosting his stack up a bit to about 1.9 million.
Now that we're down to 117 players and 13 tables, the tournament staff has announced that all tables will now be using the automatic shufflers, which will no doubt give us even more hands per hour.
Phil Collins is oh-so-close to the seven-million chip mark after eliminating Matthew Wantman from the ESPN feature table.
The action folded around to Collins who raised to 55,000 from the hijack position before Wantman shoved from the big blind for 378,000 holding . Collins called, showing down , but despite both players pairing up on the flop of , Collins still had the lead.
Still, Wantman now had the flush outs, but the turn and river ran black (, ) and Wantman's WSOP Main Event is over.
against the 
of David Barter.
and Cheng was sent packing toward the rail.
of big stack JP Kelly, and there would be no help on board. The 
and river 
have sent him to the exit.
, Bryan Devonshire had Seth Davies all in and at risk.
), but it gave Davies outs to a chop. The 
, and Logan check-called a bet from the raiser while Sands ducked out. The 
turn went check-check, and the river 
saw the same action repeat.
for the Royal Flush. That's all. We can't even remember if the words "Royal Flush" are supposed to be capitalized or not, that's how infrequently we've seen it happen. It's the first of Logan's career, and it comes in the WSOP Main Event, boosting his stack up a bit to about 1.9 million.
, Collins still had the lead.
, 
) and Wantman's WSOP Main Event is over.
