The action is fast and furious and 25 players have departed over the last three levels. Korea’s Soo Joo Kim is one of the more recent casualties and it is getting to do or die time for some of the 67 remaining players.
Karol Janiszewski has dropped down the pecking order and his once mighty stack is much reduced and the Polish player now has just 28,000 in chips in front of him.
Bobby Zhang has been a busy bunny over the last three levels and has run his 20,000 stack all the way up to over 100,000, courtesy of a kindly tablemate.
We caught former frontrunner Oliver Saul involved in a hand against Jesus Fernandez shortly before the break that had the potential to be a big pot, but fizzled out after the flop.
We caught the two players battling it out over the flop with close to 12,000 in bets, blinds and antes in the pot just as Saul (cutoff) checked the action over to Fernandez on the button. The UK-based Spaniard fired for 4,500 and Saul made the call to bring in the turn and pair the board.
This brought checks from both players and once Saul again checked on the river Fernandez bombed out a beefy 25,000 bet, which was enough to take it down and he climbed to around 90,000 while Saul dropped to around 95,000.
With the break fast approaching we got a few chips counts of those still in the running:
Will Li opened the action from under-the-gun with a min-raise to 4,000 and the action folded around to Vivian Im on the button who re-raised to 12,000 in total. After both blinds got out of the way Li made the call and the flop came down .
Li checked the action over to Im, who fired out a 10,000 continuation bet and Li check-raised all-in for another 40,000 more, sending the Korean pro deep into the tank. Eventually, Im threw in a black 100-chip to represent the call and the cards were turned over.
Will Li:
Vivian Im:
It seemed that Li was in a great deal of trouble and the turn left him circling the drain before the hit the river, bringing an ecstatic cry of ‘yes!’ from Li, who then apologized to Im for the suckout. That timely catch shot Li up to over 130,000 in chips and took a big bite out of Im’s stack and she dropped down to 55,000.
Following an early position open to 3,000 Korea’s Vivian Im made the call from middle position and Hong Kong’s Will Li made the call from the button to take the action three-way to a flop of .
The original raiser checked the action over to Im, who reached for chips and led out for 4,400. That was enough to get Li to fold out but the raiser made the call to take the action heads-up to the turn.
This saw the action go check, check, with Im possibly looking to induce a bet from her opponent judging by the action on the river. The original raiser now decided to lead for the first time in the hand since his pre-flop open and fired out a bet of 11,500.
Im took her time over the decision before counting out chips, but they were raising chips, not calling chips and she made it 27,000 to go in total. The original raiser folded immediately leaving Im to scoop the pot and climb to 95,000.
Soo Joo Kim is ducking and diving at the right time and has recently pushed Zhao YanChao off a hand. We picked up the action on the turn with close to 10,000 in the pot and the community cards spread .
Kim had checked the action over to Yanchao on the button and the Chinese player had fired for 4,500. Kim check-raised all-in for 17,300 in total and Yanchao had a decision to make. Eventually, Yanchao let it go and a relieved looking Kim raked in the pot and climbed to 33,500, while Yanchao dropped to 63,200.
Poland’s Karol Janiszewski is another play intent on building a big stack and is doing a pretty good job of it so far. Every time we have walked past Karol’s table he seems to be involved in a hand, and it’s always a big one, though we have not seen all that many of them make it to showdown.
We saw Janiszewski getting frisky in a blind on blind battle versus a tablemate who limped the action from the small blind and the Polish player responded with a raise to 6,700.
The small blind re-raised to 16,700 and Janiszewski quickly pulled the trigger and moved all-in for significantly more in chips than his opponent, who agonized over the decision for quite some time before letting it go and leaving Janiszewski to rake in the pot unopposed.
The next time we passed by Janiszewski had bombed the turn on a board against another tablemate who flashed the Pole pocket threes before throwing his hand away, but not before begging Janiszewskito show his hand. The Pole flashed a cheeky grin and mucked, taking down yet another pot to climb to 83,000.
Eventually, we finally got to see Janiszewski in a hand that made it to showdown, but it resulted in an anti-climatic chop. The hand in question was a blind on blind battle against Diego Gonzales, who was in the big blind, and the two got into a raising war that saw all the chips go in pre-flop.
Karol held and was up against Gonzales’ and there was a sweaty moment for the Spaniard on the turn when the board ran out to give Karol a heap of outs for the win, but the river was not one of them and the two divvied up the pot.