After taking a beat a short while ago Costas Artemi was into push mode and that's exactly what he did from early position. The chip leader, Adam Junglen, was sitting in the big blind and made the call after hearing it was 69,000 more for him to call.
Artemi tabled and was in good shape against Junglen's .
Poor old Daniel Nutt. Jesper Hougaard raised the minimum 16,000 from the cutoff, only for Yevgeniy Timoshenko to move all in from the button for 60,000. Nutt looked a bit pained, but passed his small blind. Back to Hougaard, and after some consideration, he called.
Hougaard:
Timoshenko:
Nutt: "Oh NO, I passed ace-jack! I was going to go all in if you hadn't done that!"
Tim Pennington raised it up to 25,000 from early position before the reraising machine, also known as Adam Junglen, moved all in from the small blind. Pennington made the call holding and was in a race situation as Junglen was holding .
The board came . An ace on the flop was enough to seal the deal and we edge ever closer to the final table.
Down to only about 40,000 in chips, John Kabbaj made his last stand, moving in from the button and Fuad Serhan making the call from the small blind. It was a race situation, Kabbaj with for the overcards and Serhan with for the underpair.
The flop, though was making Serhan's set. The turn and river came red jacks, making him a full house and ending Kabbaj's tournament. He'll collect £ 7,072 for his finish.
Daniel Nutt, his chips dwindling once more, announced, "All in," from the cutoff. On the button, Costas Artemi dwelled up, his head in his hands. "Write this in the report," yelled down a pro-Nutt railer from the balcony bar, "We're all so nervous there's sweat dripping down the rail." Thanking the poker gods that there was not any sweat dripping from the rail on us below, I turned back to the table. Eventually, quietly, Artemi called.
Artemi:
Nutt: very much an underdog with .
Board: , prompting roaring celebrations from the balcony. "Nutt! Nutt! Nutt!"
It was folded around to Jesper Hougaard who made a standard raise from the button before Andy Bloch reraised all in from the big blind. Hougaard snap-called with and was ahead of Bloch's .
The board came , meaning Andy Bloch falls just a few places short of the final table.
Hougaard meanwhile consolidates his position in second place rising up to 363,000.
With the increase in blinds, things are getting desperate for the Table Three short stacks. Neil Channing seems happy to wait it out until he finds a hand -- he quietly folded his 8,000 blind to an under-the-gun raise from John Dwyer and hasn't seen a single opportunity since.
The reason that Channing's opportunities are limited is that to his immediate right he has fellow short stack Joseph El-Shater, whose approach to playing a small stack is wildly different. Finding that everyone had folded to him on the button, El-Shater shoved all in and took down the hefty blinds and antes. The next hand, an under-the-gun raise to 20,000 from Andy Bloch didn't deter him, and again he announced, "All in," for a total of 51,000. Bloch then disappeared into the tank. El-Shater seemed amused. Bloch appeared good-naturedly weary. Four or five minutes passed with absolutely nothing happening at all, Bloch smiling vaguely and periodically shrugging at El-Shater. "Sorry, Andy," said Hougaard eventually, "but time." It took a little while for the floor to arrive, by which time Bloch had actually called time on himself as well, and folded a few moments later.
With the action folded to Warren Woodall in the small blind, he moved all in for his remaining 40,000 in chips and was called by Linda Lee in the big blind. Woodall's was dominated by Lee's , which held up on the board to send him to the rail in 16th place. He'll collect £ 5,535 for his performance here today.