The elimination of Phil Ivey brings to a conclusion all of the Round Two matches. The tournament is on break until 7pm local time, at which point the four Hearts and Diamonds Round Three matches will take place. Those matches are:
Hearts Bracket
Erick Lindgren v. David Williams
John Phan v. Sam Farha
Diamonds Bracket
Kenny Tran v. David Oppenheim
Huck Seed v. Glen Chorny
Vanessa Rousso's good fortune was Phil Ivey's bad fortune. Rousso woke up with after Ivey open-pushed his button with . Her pocket tens made the best hand, jacks and tens, on a board. Ivey is out in Round Two; Rousso is through to the money. She'll play 2007 NBC Heads-Up Champ Paul Wasicka in Round Three.
Just one Second Round match remains in action. Vanessa Rousso jumped out to an early lead on Phil Ivey. She was up approximately 65,000 to 15,000 when Ivey open-shoved his button with and Rousso called with . Neither player improved, giving Ivey the double-up and a bit of breathing room.
Team FullTilt Pro John Juanda has just eliminated actor turned poker player Gabe Kaplan from the tournament to clinch a spot in the 'Sweet 16.'
Juanda put a very short-stacked Kaplan all in before the flop and Gabe made the call:
Juanda:
Kaplan:
Left to the fate of the community cards, Kaplan watched as the board filled out giving Juanda top pair and a victory in the match. Juanda will play online stud Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier in the Round of 16.
Scotty Nguyen and Ted Forrest just flipped for a spot in the Round of 16 and 'The Prince of Poker' called it right, setting up a match between Nguyen and Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu.
Scotty limped into the pot from the button, Forrest moved all in and Scotty made the call:
Nguyen:
Forrest:
Forrest held the lead through the turn as the board filled out , but Scotty spiked an ace on the river to take the lead and the match.
On his way out, Scotty looked into one of the cameras and said, "That's right, baby.... MWAH!"
Phil Hellmuth took an early lead in his match against Jeffrey Ishbia and never looked back. Although Ishbia held on as a short stack for a while, he was finally undone when he moved in with and was called by Hellmuth's . A board of gave each player two pair; Hellmuth's queens and eights were best.
After the match concluded, Hellmuth and Ishbia could be seen quietly chatting, with Hellmuth pointing several times at the spot where the board would be. Presumably they were discussing an earlier hand. That discussion is of little use to Ishbia now. He'll be on the rail for Round Three, the round which now takes on an anticipatory flavor with Hellmuth scheduled to meet Tom Dwan in a rematch of their three-hand match from 2008 in which Dwan cracked Hellmuth's aces, all in preflop, by spiking a ten on the river.
Caesars qualifier Jeffrey Ishbia was down to approximately 3,000 chips after losing a big pot to Phil Hellmuth about twenty minutes ago. Somehow, Ishbia has managed to hang on, but he's still very short and the blinds will increase in a few minutes.
On a board showing , Dario Minieri attempted to make a move against Daniel Negreanu holding nothing but , but Negreanu looked him up with a pocket pair of kings.
"He needs a nine," said Negreanu before the dealer burned one and tabled the river, the .
"Dario, I only bluffed you once," said Kid Poker after the match. Though he sounded serious, many in the crowd got a good laugh out of Daniel's remark.
Negreanu will play the winner of the Scotty Nguyen v. Ted Forrest match-up in the Round of 16.
Don Cheadle had a lot of work to do if he wanted to survive the Second Round. With a slight chip lead on Paul Wasicka, he moved all in on a flop of after Wasicka bet. Wasicka quickly called with , a hand that was big favorite over Wasicka's . Neither the turn nor river improved Cheadle, crippling his stack to roughly 3,000 chips.
The next hand Paul Wasicka moved all in from the button and Cheadle called. Wasicka rolled over a pair of fours; Cheadle had two overcards, . Cheadle picked up a few additional outs on a flop of , and then even more with the turn. Somehow, he missed them all when the river fell . That card eliminated Cheadle from the tournament and sent Wasicka through to face the winner of the Rousso-Ivey match, which was just moved to the feature table.