We looked up to see the cards turned over at the Centre Court feature table so we can't say 100% what the action was, but we're assuming that Eric Liu raised and Andre Akkari pushed. Either way, it was all in preflop.
Akkari:
Liu:
Board:
A gentlemanly handshake, and we are down to 26 already.
Ok, maybe not all -- but November Niners James Akenhead and Antoine Saout have indeed been redrawn at the same table, Akenhead in seat one and Saout in seat nine. If anyone fancies a little taster of November's WSOP final table, we recommend you head down to the Empire right now to see the fireworks.
We caught up with last min-casher John Kabbaj at the payout desk, where he informed us that he had got his last in with against Markus Ristola's . He flopped a ten, but the ace on the turn sent him to the rail.
"I doubled him up right away this morning as well," noted the philosophical Kabbaj. Commiserations to the World Championship PLO bracelet winner on his bustout, and we'll be returning shortly with the redraw and chip counts.
We're down to 27 players and the clock has been stopped while they redraw for final three tables. We have no information yet on who was our last unfortunate victim (there's a nice pay jump at 27th), but we've got our detective hats on; details soon.
We peered over the balcony from one of the upstairs tables to see Christian Harder leaving the feature table, his backpack on and his hoodie zipped up. We're not sure what he had, but his assassin Thomas Bichon was holding pocket queens that rivered a set and Harder couldn't beat it.
Bichon is now up to 516,000 -- could it be back to back wins for the WPT Cyprus champion?
I joined the action on the turn of a board. Saar Wilf led for 30,000, but Yevgeniy Timoshenko was in no mood to lie down, and duly bumped it up to 90,000. "You made a boat?" inquired Wilf. After a brief pause, Wilf made the call.
On the river, it was insta-check squared as both cards were revealed, Timoshenko pipping his opponent to the post with versus . Wilf laughed out loud, but inside he will have been crying salt tears of frustration.