As soon as he's doubled up, although he's still short, Giannetti goes on a raising rampage. He steals the blinds with a button raise next hand. The hand after that, he raises again from the cutoff -- although this time, Strzemp raises all in, and he folds. Then he raises again and this time is forced to fold A-8 up when Young puts him all in.
And when Giannetti raises the next hand, he finds a caller in Michael Schwartz. They see a flop, and Schwartz announces all in. Giannetti dwells up, asks Schwartz whether he has hit a nine (no answer) and then calls.
Schwartz:
Giannetti:
Turn:
River:
Schwartz has made a full house, and Giannetti is OUT.
Schwartz, flushed with confidence after knocking out two players in one go, raised preflop. A short-stacked Matt Giannetti pushed for another 300,000. "Wow!" said Schwartz, "I'm maybe behind here." He is, and he calls anyway.
That incredible double whammy means that Kyle Bowker, who possessed more chips at the time than Sergey Bowker, becomes the sixth place finisher for $23,887.
Not since prom night have I experienced so much action, Mike Schwartz triumphing in what could be the defining pot of the tournament.
After Kyle Bowker had raised to 100,000 preflop, both John Strzemp and Mike Schwartz called from the cutoff and button respectively only for Sergey Rybachenko to push all in from the small blind for what appeared to be circa 300,000.
Back round to Bowker, and after a brief pause, he also announced all in, sliding 673,000 over the line!
Guess what?! After asking for a count of Bowker's stack, Mike Schwartz also shoved his chips into the pot, meaning we had ourselves a gargantuan three-way pot!
Rybachenko =
Bowker =
Schwartz =
Flop =
Turn =
Drum roll please, maestro...
River =
Schwartz takes the lot and eliminates two players in one fell swoop!
Disconnectivity has caused a delay in this report, but I can tell you that within the last couple of rounds, Sergey Rybachenko has gone from chip leader to short stack with just 380,000 lying on the felt before him.
The biggest hit came courtesy of neighbour Jason Young. With the board reading , Rybachenko check-raised Young's 55,000 bet to a total of 125,000. Young smooth called.
On the turn, Rybachenko bet out 250,000 and Young insta-called.
Then, on the river, Rybachenko blasted out a 600-700,000 bet which, again, Young insta-called.
Rybachenko mucked before even looking at Young's .
Several hands later and it got even worse for the Russian, Mike Schwartz raising it up to 126,000 preflop, Rybachenko calling and Rory Monahan bumping it up to 326,000.
Although tempted, Schwartz eventually folded, only for Rybachenko to make a surprise call.
On the , the chips couldn't hit the middle fast enough, Rybachenko's top pair with in deep trouble against the dominant pocket rockets of Monahan. An ace on the flop, followed by a non-Broadway blank on the river meant that Monahan had received a much-need double through, whilst Rybachenko had seen his stack slip even further.
Mike Schwartz wins two pots in a row through the possible deceptiveness of the preflop call.
Firstly, he limp-called a preflop raise of 40,000 from Sergey Rybachenko before pushing all in on the flop to take the pot.
Then a couple of hands later, he limped under the gun, called a raise from small blinder Kyle Bowker before reraising his continuation bet all in on a . A frustrated Bowker folded to give Schwartz his second uncontested pot in quick succession.
With the absolute minimum of fuss, West gets it in preflop with against the of now-monster-stack Jason Young.
Board: an uneventful
Handshakes and sighs, and West takes his leave, probably gone to have a nap if he's sensible.
Once West has departed and the cards are being shuffled again, a delighted Young looks down at his 3 million or so stack, and laughs, "Well screw you guys now! I tried to be nice before!"