Benny Spindler opened the action for 5,000 and picked up a couple of callers including big blind Jabran Zahid. The flop was and Zahid decided to move all in for a bet of around 20 big blinds. Spindler made the call pretty quickly.
Spindler had landed top set with his but for Zahid it was, as he would later describe it, a “Sick flop.” He turned over for the flopped straight. A turn card and a river saw Zahid double up and take a chunk of change from the unamused Spindler.
It was not difficult to see why there was a reporters and two TV people lurking in the corner. You only had to look at the table next to them to see why. At this table was, among others, Paul Newey, Eugene Katchalov, Chris Moorman, Jason Mercier and Igor Kurganov, a terrible line up for anyone filling in the gaps, but a great one for someone looking to get to the nub of the tournament. And yet, things were strangely quiet, as the PokerStars Blog reports:
Viktors Caikins was all in preflop against former EPT winner Kevin MacPhee. Caikins looked good with against the American's but the board gradually turned in MacPhee's favour, coming . MacPhee is now over the quarter-million mark.
Sergio Aido's back on track after busting a player with aces and he just took out another. PokerStars Team Online Mikhail Shalamov was at risk for about 55,000 chips from the big blind when Aido, in the small blind, called his shove.
David Cabrera opened the action for 5,500 and short stacked Igor Kurganov decided to defend his big blind. The two players saw a flop of and Kurganov check-called a bet of 3,500.
The turn card was the which prompted both players to check and see the land on the river. Kurganov led for 6,500 and Cabrera flicked out the call. “King high.” announced Kurganov and with Cabrera tabling it was starting to look pretty grim for Kurganov.
Before the flop Marco Caza raised and Hossein Ensan three-bet to 8,200 which was only called by the initial raiser.
The flop came down and Caza check-called 12,200. On the turn the hit and Ensan bet 18,500 when Caza checked to him again.
Caza made the call again and checked on the river a well. Ensan quickly moved all in for about 70,000 chips and Caza let go of his hand. The man who was once the chip leader has given up some chips but he's still in good shape.
Paul Newey has made an impressive comeback in the latter stages of play today and with a few more chips to play with he is becoming more active in an attempt to increase his stack.
First Chris Moorman in the big blind defended a 2x open from Newey and they saw a heads-up flop of . Moorman then check-folded to a 6,000 bet from Newey.
Next up Jason Mercier opened from early position and flicked out the call when Newey three-bet him. A flop of and it was Mercier’s turn to check-fold to a 14,000 bet from Newey.