Sondre Sagstuen and Todd Keikoan play a large pot for about 70,000. The board reads 9-7-4-9-5, and Sagstuen shows for a rivered seven-high straight. Keikoan shows 9-x for trip nines, and Sagstuen wins the pot.
Keikoan is crippled, and has some serious doubling-up to do in order to come back.
Heads-up at table 6, Ram Vaswani raises from the button/small blind to 8,000, Bret Winograd reraises from the big blind to 12,000, and Vaswani calls. The flop comes , and there is unknown action. The turn card is the , Winograd bets 8,000, and Vaswani calls. The river card is the , Winograd bets 8,000, Vaswani raises, and Winograd folds, leaving himself just 4,000 in chips. (He must have had a pretty weak hand to fold a pot like that to the ultra-aggressive Ram Vaswani.)
The next hand, Winograd is all in preflop with against Ram Vaswani's . The board comes , and Vaswani wins the pot with king high.
Bret Winograd is eliminated in 16th place, earning $6,634.
Ram Vaswani is the third player to advance to tonight's final table, scheduled to begin at 8:00 pm PDT.
Ishak Noyan has been on a bit of a roller coaster for the past two hours, as he was shortstacked, then had plenty of chips, and then fell behind Victor Ramdin during heads-up play. But Noyan has battled his way back into the chip lead.
Tam 'Tommy' Hang is all in preflop for his last 15,000 or so with against David Baker's . Hang takes the lead on a flop of 10-5-2, but the Q on the turn takes it away from him. The river card is an 8, and Tommy Hang is eliminated in 17th place, earning $6,634.
David Baker is the second player to advance to tonight's final table, which is scheduled to begin at 8:00 pm PDT.
With the elimination of Marwan Abdel-Al, Sondre Sangstuen and Todd Keikoan are now playing heads up at Table 1 -- sort of.
The two players decided to take a break, so they did. But since this event is running at multiple tables, the cards must still be dealt. So the floorperson came over and instructed the dealer to continue dealing the hands as they swapped blinds back and forth for as long as the players were on break. The net result will be zero, but the hands must still be dealt.
The important consideration is that the clock continues to run, so if they take an extended break (and aren't brokering a deal), they will have less time to play at this level of blinds.