Hand #117 - Jerry Yang has the button in seat 4, Tuan Lam limps from the small blind for 500,000, and Raymond Rahme checks his option in the big blind. The flop comes , Lam checks, Rahme bets 750,000, and Lam folds. Rahme takes the pot.
Hand #116 - Alex Kravchenko has the button in seat 2, he raises to 1.4 million, Jerry Yang raises from the small blind to 5 million, and Kravchenko thinks for more than a minute before he folds. Yang takes the pot.
Tournament Director Jack Effel introduced Marcel Luske as "the most well dressed man from Belgium." Marcel Luske is a snazzy dresser except that he's from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, not from Belgium.
Also in the crowd was Gavin Smith, who wandered around clutching a cocktail.
2002 WSOP bracelet winner Perry Friedman has been in the stands on and off over the last few hours. My favorite Perry Friedman story was when he ate a Keno crayon for $1.
Hand #115 - Raymond Rahme has the button in seat 1, he raises to 1.5 million, and Alex Kravchenko calls from the small blind. The flop comes , Kravchenko checks, Rahme bets 1 million, and Kravchenko folds. Rahme takes the pot.
Hand #114 - Tuan Lam has the button in seat 6, Raymond Rahme limps from the small blind for 500,000, and Alex Kravchenko checks his option. The flop comes , Rahme bets 1 million, and Kravchenko folds. Rahme takes the pot.
Hand #113 - Jerry Yang has the button in seat 4, he raises to 2 million, and Tuan Lam calls from the small blind. The flop comes , Lam bets 3 million, Yang raises to 9 million, and Lam thinks for about two minutes before he folds. Jerry Yang wins the pot, and a few fans in the crowd start weakly cheering "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"
The chant seems to be more about good-natured fun than anything else, because the foreigners still alive at the final table (representing South Africa, Russia, and Canada) have such strong national support in the crowd.