Martin Kozlov raised, and Gerasimos Deres called in the small blind. Mel Judah joined them from the big. The action flop came . Deres quickly slid out a big stack of chips, around 60,000 or so. Just as fast, Judah moved all in for 70,000 total. Kozlov folded, and they were on their backs.
Judah: for middle pair and an open-ender
Deres: for top two
The turn couldn't have been more of a brick. "Ten please," Judah asked the dealer nicely. And he politely thanked him when the appeared on the river.
"I was so close to a bounty," Deres said. But Judah told Kozlov, the table's big stack, that he was saving it for him.
When play folded around to Shao Liu in the small blind he would move his remaining 180,000 into the middle. It wasn't looking good for Liu as Gerasimos Deres insta-called.
Deres:
Shao Liu:
The board ran out , both making their pair but Deres of course taking the pot and eliminating Liu.
Liu goes home in 5th place, taking home AUD$24,000 and leaving the final table four-handed.
In case you've noticed that the title of this event has the word "bounties" in it, Mel Judah is the only player with a bounty on his head to make the final table. Eliminating him is worth an extra $1,000, but that doesn't seem to be figuring into the decision-making process.
Action is hard to come by at the moment. The last orbit saw two walks and an open-limped small blind. The short stacks don't seem willing to play for the chips in the middle with anything less than a premium hand, and the big stacks are content to take it easy and let them blind away.
Mel Judah started the day as the short stack and has played much of the final table thus far, as the players seeming to be the next bust out, but he won't go that easy.
Judah shoved from early position and both Shao Liu and Gerasimos Deres made the call from the blinds.
The board would run out with Liu and Deres' electing to check it all the way.
Deres' and Liu both announced they had ace-high while Judah tabled to take down the pot and triple up.
Gerasimos Deres raised to 26,000 from middle position, and in the cutoff, Lindy Thornton moved all in for just a hair over 100,000. Deres called to flip with her.
Thornton:
Deres:
Thornton's day was pretty much over after the flop made Deres a set. She was drawing dead when the on the turn ended the chance for a runner-runner rescue. Deres is up to 490,000.
Martin Kozlov now has an over 1,000,000 deep stack and sits with almost 50% of all the chips in play.
Since then he has showed relentless aggression and no players have played back at him. He continues to add blinds and antes to his growing mountain of chips.