Here's the redraw for the final three tables in action.
Table 21
Seat 1: Marc Inizan
Seat 2: Fabrizio Baldassari
Seat 3: Phil Ivey
Seat 4: Alex KEating
Seat 5: Bojan Gledovic
Seat 6: Jani Sointula
Seat 7: Roland de Wolfe
Seat 8: Ronald Lee
Seat 9: John Eames
Table 22
Seat 1: Greg Mueller
Seat 2: Viktor Blom
Seat 3: Anthony Newman
Seat 4: Brian Powell
Seat 5: Barry Greenstein
Seat 6: Hoi Cheung
Seat 7: Daniel Steinberg
Seat 8: Thomas Bichon
Seat 9: Arnaud Mattern
Table 23
Seat 1: Dan Fleyshman
Seat 2: Hoyt Corkins
Seat 3: Nicolas Levi
Seat 4: David Peters
Seat 5: Andrew Pantling
Seat 6: Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Seat 7: James Bord
Seat 8: Clint Coffee
Seat 9: Barny Boatman
First in from the button, Michael Benvenuti shipped it in for about 70,000 with . Next door, Daniel Steinberg looked down at and instantly called, and the cards were on their backs with Benvenuti at risk.
The flop was loads o' fun as it came out to give Benvenuti the set of sevens and put Steinberg in a deep hole. The turn was the wrong shade of red to fill in his flush, but the river was much more flush-friendly. It was no so kind to Benvenuti, eliminated before his dinner even had time to settle.
He's out in 28th place, and we're now redrawing our final three tables!
Freddy Deeb had under 50k after check-folding a flop to Ronald Lee a little earlier (having called his preflop threebet which was aimed at Nicolas Levi and himself). It came down to a blind on blind confrontation with Roland de Wolfe to bust the gregarious, experienced player - de Wolfe raising in the small blind when it passed round, and going nowhere when Deeb seemed prepared to commit his stack. He showed to Deeb's big blind and off they went to let the deck decide the outcome:
Flop: Now a King would prove no problem for Deeb...
Turn: However the bottom end of the straight was no longer of interest as the broadway now belonged to de Wolfe, Deeb saying, "You got it," as he headed off with the consoling, "Unlucky, buddy," of de Wolfe ringing in his ears.
A big bet on the river with a board of from Andrew Pantling just now, which paused his table for a while as opponent Fabrizio Baldassari thought for a long time about the 122,500 which the aggressive Pantling had bet, reaching only slightly into his million-chip stack to do it. Pantling waited patiently, but his patience, and his smacking of the flop, was rewarded when Baldassari paid and mucked, his for the flopped set making him the first player past the 1,000,000 mark.
Under the gun, Phil Ivey made it 12,500 to play, and Barny Boatman three-bet to 37,500 two seats over. When it came back to Ivey, he made a nonchalant call, heads up to the flop.
The dealer spread out , and the action went check-check. On the turn, the drew another check from Ivey, and Boatman bet 35,500. Ivey didn't waste much time calling, again pitching the chips into the pot with a certain air of confidence that's hard to explain in words.
That brought them to the river, and Ivey knocked the table again. Boatman promptly put both hands behind his stacks and shoved all in for 175,000. Ivey asked for a count, and Boatman started chatting, always a dangerous proposition against Ivey.
"Were you trap-checking on the flop?" he asked.
"Trap-checking?!" Ivey asked, as mildly incredulous as Ivey can get. Boatman continued to jaw, and Ivey obliged him with some friendly banter as he tried to solve the puzzle in front of him. He seemed almost amused at Boatman during their exchange. There was about five minutes of chatter, during which Ivey chuckled under his breath, "Trap-checking..." several more times. Finally, he let Boatman off the hook and surrendered his hand.
James Mitchell was all in on the flop of holding two nines. He was up against the pocket tens for Marc Inizan. The turn brought the and the river the to send the Irish Open champion to the rail.