Word on the street is that Vanessa Selbst was crippled a few moments ago when her pocket queens fell to an opponent with ace-queen in a huge pot. There was an ace on the flop and another one on the river, as the story goes, and Selbst was left with just 4,100 after that beat.
Those chips went all into the next pot when she looked down at off-suit, and she ran her small ace into the of Ricardo Pereira. A board full of blanks means she's run out of chips, and Selbst has grumpily headed off to the payout desk to collect a little consolation money.
Vanessa Selbst and Kevin MacPhee are pretty good buddies, and they've spent the day checking on each other's stacks and bouncing hands off each other. And strangely, MacPhee's elimination came just a moment before Selbst's.
Working his short stack all day, MacPhee finally put his chips in with , only to run smack into Jeffrey Ust and his .
The suited flop was a good sweat, but the turn and river blanked off to leave MacPhee wanting. He's been eliminated with about 32 players left, and someone is looking for him. "Did Kevin just bust, too?!" a frustrated Selbst asked as she glanced around the room for the other most recent victim of this Day 2.
We're down to 27 players, and the field is in the middle of the penultimate redraw of the event. Just three tables remain, and we'll play on for another five levels or 18 eliminations, whichever comes first. It's a coin flip right now, but we'll give a little action on 18 eliminations if anyone wants to book it.
Norbert Levigne's tournament has come to an end. He fell at the hands of Mendel Benoit who was able to get three streets of value from a flopped Broadway straight.
The flop was and Levigne check-called a bet of 4,800 from Benoit before the dealer placed the on the turn. Levigne checked again. This time, Benoit upped his bet to 8,700. Levigne called.
The river was the and Levigne checked once more, with only 20,000 chips behind. Benoit fired 25,000, enough to put Levigne all in. Levigne took a minute and then made the call.
Benoit tabled the for the straight. Levigne mucked his hand and headed for the door.
We owe the family and friends of Nabil Nedjai an apology. We mistakenly busted him from the chip counts, but we've just found him, and he's doing rather well with 94,000 chips in front of him.
On this hand, there was some confusion as to who was the big blind and Julien Varin, who was actually the big blind, folded and his 2,400 was forfeited before Roberto Romanello could act under the gun. Romanello then raised to 5,200 to start things off. Action then folded to Mendel Benoit in the small blind and he reraised to 11,500. Romanello reraised all in for 79,700 and Benoit called.
Romanello:
Benoit:
The flop came down and so far everything was in order for Romanello to double up. The turn brought the to give him an unbeatable set and then the river completed the board with the . Benoit shipped over the chips and Romanello doubled up.
Romanello has been a well-known face on the poker scene for several years now. At the end of 2010, Romanello earned the largest win of his career after taking down the European Poker Tour Prague Main Event for €640,000. He scored his third and fourth largest scores earlier this year in March and September, respectively. In March, he won the World Poker Tour Bratislava Main Event for €140,685. Then in September, he won the €5,000 Six-Max Turbo side event at EPT Barcelona for €110,250. In total, Romanello has $2,225,742 in live tournament earnings.
Even with all his tournament accolades, Romanello has never won a World Series of Poker gold bracelet. The closest he has ever come was in 2009 at the WSOP Europe where he finished seventh in the £5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha bracelet event. That's his only WSOP final table, but he's looking to make this one his second and get that coveted gold bracelet.
If Romanello can win this event, he'll complete poker's Triple Crown achievement; a WSOP gold bracelet, an EPT Main Event title and a WPT Main Event title. What will be unique about Romanello's is that it'll be the first Triple Crown won all on European soil.