Now that Chad Brown has all the formalities out of the way he is now down to business and that business is winning the chips of his two opponents.
From the button Brown raises to 2,000, Anton Makiievskyi three-bets to 6,500 and when Richard Toth folds, Brown makes the call. The flop comes down , Makkievskyi bets 7,500 and Brown quickly makes the call. The turn brings the into play and both players check. The action is the same when the dealer puts the [4] on the river.
Freddy Deeb let the blinds pass through him before he moved all-in for his last 3,500 from the button. Steve O'Dwyer made the automatic call from the big blind.
Deeb:
O'Dwyer:
The board ran to pair O'Dwyer's queen and end Deeb's day early.
Steve O'Dwyer raises to 2,800 from the button and Freddy Deeb makes it 8,800 to play. Ryan D'Angelo fold and the action is back on O'Dwyer. He takes back his initial bet and replaces it with a pile of yellow chips worth 21,000. Deeb makes the call and it is heads up to the flop.
Deeb checks in the dark but O'Dwyer is in no mood for playing passively and promptly bets 13,000. Deeb asks how many chips O'Dwyer is playing and when he has finished counting (around 42,000) he calls. The turn is the and again Deeb checks but O'Dwyer moves all in and is snapped off by Deeb.
Deeb
O'Dwyer
Deeb is a substantial favourite with his turned set but the sails down the river, completing O'Dwyer's boat annd leaving Deeb with just 5,300 chips. Ouch.
Anton Makiievskyi has just turned up fashionably late to spoil the heads up party between Richard Toth and Chad Brown. Upon taking his seat Makiievskyi was congratulated, by Brown, on making the final table of the WSOP Main Event, even stating he may be a slight favourite. Will Brown's prediction come true? We do not have long to wait to find out as the "Big Dance" final table is less than a month away.
Play being three-hand, we expect the aggression levels to be high.
Freddy Deeb won the first hand at his table. He raised to 300 from the button and c-bet a flop. Steve O'Dwyer defended his big blind but check-folded to a 500 bet on the flop.
On another table, Max Silver made his intentions clear. He three-bet to 700 when Terrence Chan raised 275 into his big blind. Chan called but folded to a 660 bet a a flop.
A total of 256 players registered for round one yesterday and that number was been whittled down to 30 players. They return for round two today of this shootout format where the the dynamics will be very different from yesterday. That's because each player will only face-off against two other players on 3-max tables rather than the six to seven of yesterday. Each player is already in the money now and guaranteed €6,913.
We expect the action to be frantic from the off. Here's a reminder of how they line up today: