It took four raises to get Gary Jones (big blind) all in, called by big stack Karl Mahrenholz. Mahrenholz was in pretty poor shape with his up against the green-haired player's . The board came down all red, no surprises, and Karl paid off Gary Jones' 75k or so, bumping him up the chip ladder for what seems like the first time since day One - to around 150,000.
The money went in on a flop, Lee Nelson holding vs. Julius Colman's . The turn was the making Nelson trips and the river was the turning it into a full house. Nelson doubled to about 90,000 on the hand.
Now that the final table outside the vicinity of the cardroom has dispersed, I have been forced to once again pitch up tent again downstairs.
As I scour the cardroom, I notice a few Brits still plugging away: Gary Jones, Jeff Buffenbarger, Dave Colclough, Ian Frazer and Karl Mahrenholz among some of the names still flying the British flag.
In fact the latter of those five, Karl 'Mantis' Mahrenholz is doing particularly well, just creeping into the current top 10 with 184,000 in chips.
A former city banker from London, Karl burst onto the scene a year or two back and quickly quit his job to pursue the pro scene. Evidently, this decision was a wise one, the caterpillar eyebrower finding some nice scores including a runner up finish in the inaugural GUKPT in Bolton and a few chunky cashes in Vegas this year.
Now traveling the circuit as a sponsored play with his fellow Hit Squad members, Karl might be a dark horse for this tournament. He's cool, calm and collective, yet timely aggressive and knows how to play a big stack.
Philip Hilm landed on the short stack after a hand that saw Matt Larsh moving all in pre-flop with and Hilm calling with . Small cards all on the flop, with Larsh rivering a set of kings for good measure left Hilm with only about 30,000.
Hilm chipped up a bit over the next orbit or so, to 45,000, and when Abishek Khaitan made a button raise to 6,500, Hilm decided to move in from the small blind. Khaitan called in a shot, tabling , dominating Hilm's . The flop brought both men pairs, but Hilm was drawing dead once the hit the turn, making Khaitan's set and he headed to the rail.