Kevin Iacofano opened with a raise from middle position and got one caller in the big blind. The flop came and both players checked. The turn was the and Iacofano's opponent bet 2,000. Iacofano called.
The river brought the . This time Iacofano's opponent bet 3,000, and after a bit of thought Iacofano let his hand go.
Despite that small hit, Iacofano still has much to show for his work during four-and-a-half levels today. He has about 84,000 now.
We've walked by Mike "The Mad Genius" Caro's table here in the Pavilion room countless times today but had yet to catch him involved in a hand until just recently.
A player in middle position raised to 1,200 and Caro re-raised to 3,200 from the hijack. Action folded back around to the original raiser who tossed in a call.
The flop came and both players checked. When the fell on the turn the first player bet out 3,000 and Caro thought for a bit before calling. The river brought the and the first player checked it over to Caro who went into the tank. Caro carefully studied his opponent, no doubt looking for a tell of some kind, and played with his orange T5000 chips looking like he wanted to toss one out as a bet.
He eventually decided to check and flipped up his which prompted the other player to muck his hand. After a bit of banter between the two, the other player admitted he held ace-jack which seemed to surprise Caro a bit.
Caro has been maintaining a decent stack on Day 1 and after the hand was up to 51,000.
We're not sure of the details, but defending champ Jonathan Duhamel was kind enough to tell us that he recently doubled with against . Duhamel is now back up to the starting stack of 30K.
Following the breaking of the main feature table, we followed Michael DeMichele over to his new seat in the Blue section, where he was able to build his stack up over 15,000 in short order. Then, just now, he found himself in a tense situation in which he had to commit just about every last one of those chips he'd earned.
The board read and there was about 6,000 in the middle when DeMichele led with a bet from the big blind, then his opponent raised to 7,500. DeMichele counted out his chips and divided out enough to reraise back to 11,750 total.
His opponent -- who had roughly the same stack to start the hand as did DeMichele -- promptly pushed all in, causing DeMichele to put his hand over his face. After another agonizing few seconds he announced he was all in as well.
DeMichele showed and was ahead of his opponent's . The turn was the and the river the , and a count afterwards showed that DeMichele indeed had his opponent covered just barely. Another player has hit the rail, while DeMichele now sits with about 35,000.
On a flop of , an opponent in middle position checked to Jameson Painter who led out for 1,625. The opponent check-raised, throwing out three T1,000 chips, but as per the WSOP rules, he was required to meet the minimum raise, which was 3,250.
Painter called the 3,250, then both players checked down both the turn of the and the river before the player showed . Painter mucked his hand.
Almost at the same time, Phil Hellmuth, who had been broken from the secondary feature table, arrived with his short stack, but a bellowing cry of "COCKTAILS, 275!" brought our attention to the stack of AJ Gambino, who's now on almost 99,000 in chips! For the record, Gambino was not the one screaming across the room.
Daniel Negreanu raised to 950 from middle position and was called by the button to see a flop. Negreanu fired out 1,400 and was min-raised to 2,800. The Canadian made the call and then called another 4,000 on the turn before both players checked the river.
Negreanu's opponent turned over for top two pair and "KidPoker" was forced to simply muck his cards as he dropped back down to 41,000
Our last count had Jeff Fenech trending upwards toward the top of the counts, and he's still at it over there.
We picked up a heads-up pot on the flop as it showed . A gentleman we don't recognize got himself all in for about 17,000 right there, and Fenech put him to the test. It was pocket aces, for Mr. Gentleman, but Fenech's had out-flopped him in a big way.
The turn and river did nothing to change either hand, and that most recent knockout pushes Fenech higher, up over the century mark to about 120,000.