James Akenhead - 6,735,000
Grant Hinkle - 5,050,000
James Akenhead has taken the chip lead and at the start of this level, each player will have 42 and 32 big blinds respectively. We'll see how this affects their strategies. Despite the rising blinds and antes, there is still plenty of room left for post-flop play, and given the way this tournament has gone up to this point, we may see the action in round 29 resemble that of round 28.
After an hour and fifteen minutes of heads up play, we're not much closer to deciding the outcome of this tournament. In that time, we have played 39 hands. Only eight of them have seen a river. Two hands were ended on the turn, and four hands were won with a bet on the flop. The rest were taken down preflop.
Neither player seems willing to take much risk, although James Akenhead has definitely been applying more pressure on Grant Hinkle than the other way around. The crowd is starting to lose interest, with several spectators yawning and rubbing their eyes.
Interestingly, we are off the structure chart that Harrah's provided to all players at the start of the tournament. That chart (optimistically?) had only 28 levels. We are now starting Level 29, blinds of 80,000 / 160,000 with an ante of 20,000.
Grant Hinkle has the button in seat 10. He makes it 300,000 straight. James Akenhead pops it back to 900,000. Hinkle does not make the call. Akenhead wins another pot.
Grant Hinkle has the button in seat 10. Hinkle folds, giving James Akenhead a walk. Akenhead now has a shade of over 6,000,000 chips, grabbing the chip lead for the first time.
James Akenhead has the button in seat 9 and he raises to 350,000. Grant Hinkle calls from the big blind and they see the flop. Hinkle checks and Akenhead bets 500,000. Hinkle makes the call. The turn brings the . Hinkle checks again, and Akenhead checks behind. The river card is the . Hinkle checks and Akenhead bets 1,000,000. Hinkle calls. Akenhead shows and wins the pot with two pair.