Joe Hachem looked up an opponent's all-in bet with a pocket pair of eights, only to see his opponent reveal .
As the machine-dealt flop came , the table let out a collective "Ohh!" "It's easy when you know it's coming," Hachem said, as the rest of the board filled out , .
Hachem eliminated his opponent from the tournament in the hand and increased his tournament net worth to 12,650.
Two tables have broken thus far as the tournament field has been narrowed to 79 players. One very unique feature about the PokerPro tournament software is that it keeps the tables fairly balanced and automatically breaks tables when necessary.
PokerNews' own Editor in Chief John "Schecky" Caldwell gave the PokerPro tournament a go, but was just seen storming out of the room and overheard shouting, "LOL Donkaments . . . Rigged, Obv."
Earlier today, before the start of the PokerPro event, Phil Laak and Clonie Gowen participated in a best-of-three exhibition match on a brand new PokerPro Heads-Up machine.
To make things more interesting, Clonie and Phil made a "friendly" wager for an undisclosed amount of money, on top of the bragging rights that went along with the win.
Clonie took down the first match, but Phil was able to string together back-to-back wins in games two and three to take down the match.
As an added bonus, PokerPro has sweetened today's pot with a brand new, $9,000 Heads-Up machine, which will go to the eventual winner of today's $1,050 buy-in tournament.
As seen in the photo, each monitor has sensors built into it that are activated when a player cuffs a hand over the playing card graphic on his or her screen. When the sensor is activated, the cards, fully animated, peel up from their home on the virtual felt, enabling the player to catch a glimpse of the cards' corners.
Just like a live poker game, each player must be careful when looking at their cards, so as not to expose them to nosy neighbors.
Last year's Aussie Millions PokerPro event, won by American Adam Weiss, attracted just 31 runners. This year, participation has increased by over 200%, as 97 of the 100 available seats in the room were sold.
Not only has the size of the field increased from last year, but the quality of the field has as well. Have a look at some of these names: 2005 WSOP Main Event Winner Joe Hachem, Team Full Tilt Pros Andy Bloch, Clonie Gowen and Gavin Smith, the Unabomber Phil Laak, local pros Grant Levy, Dennis Huntly and James Potter, and actors turned poker players Shannon Elizabeth, Jennifer Tilly and Michael Vartan.
"I thought there were going to be a bunch of ********'s in this event," said one of the runners. "Now look at it!" Indeed, whoever wins this event will definitely have earned it.
For those of you scratching your heads at the title of Event 11: $1,050 PokerPro No Limit Hold'em, allow me to explain.
PokerPro is a fully automated poker table that combines the speed and efficiency of online poker with the thrill and feel of playing a traditional live game.
The tables fit up to ten contestants and instead of chips, each player sits in front of his or her own personal touch screen computer on which all of their betting actions are controlled. A larger monitor fills the middle of each table and displays the pot size, player actions, community cards and stack sizes of each player. When set up for a cash game, the players can either purchase pre-paid cards to deposit money into the table, or set up their own PokerPro account.
Today, all 10 of the PokerPro tables in the Crown Poker Room are filled with tournament players who have each paid $1,050 to play in this unique event.