With roughly 170,000 in chips in the middle on the board, Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier fired a bet of 103,000 into his opponent, Max Altergott. After a little bit of thought, Altergott slid in the chips to make the call. Mercier tabled the for top pair, top kicker, and Altergott mucked his hand.
With that pot, Mercier moved to 1.075 million in chips, while Altergott dropped back to 755,000.
From under the gun, Tom Dwan raised to 32,000. Stanley Choi reraised all in for 200,000 even from the cutoff seat, and action folded back to Dwan. After getting a count, Dwan made the call.
Dwan had the , and Choi the .
On the flop, the fell and gave Dwan the lead. He also picked up a flush draw. The turn was the , and the river the . Dwan was able to come from behind in the hand, and he moved to 500,000 in chips while also busting Choi from the tournament.
The players are now playing Level 9, and this will be the final 40-minute level of the day. Keep in mind that registration and reentry are open until the start of Day 2.
Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari won't be pulling off any more tricks in this LK Boutique $250,000 Challenge, as he was just eliminated by Igor Kurganov.
The money went in preflop with Esfandiari holding the to Kurganov's . The board came to bust Esfandiari.
Tony Bloom was all in preflop for 89,000 with the . He was called by the original raiser Fabian Quoss who had the . The board ran out to give Bloom a backdoor flush and the double up.
Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu and Erik Seidel got involving in a raising war on the flop. After all of the money went in, Negreanu tabled the for a combo draw and was up against the for Seidel's bottom set.
The turn was the , and then the river completed the board with the . Negreanu missed all of his draws and was eliminated for the second time. Seidel moved to 950,000 in chips.