Lee Jones instructed the spectators to hurry back from the intermission, hinting that a special guest of sorts would be joining the final table after the break.
Michael Schulze opened the pot with a 30,000 raise and was met by a re-raise from Ricardo Sousa, who made it 75,000 to go. The rest of the table folded and the action returned to Schulze, who made the call.
Flop:
After the flop, Schulze passed the first option to Sousa who fired a 100,000 bullet; Schulze made an immediate call.
The turn brought the , prompting both players to check. The last card off the deck was the - a card Sousa clearly didn't like, as he checked behind Schulze, saying: "You were going for your spade draw, but then you hit the ace, yeah?" He was exactly right. Michael tabled and raked in the pot. Sousa mucked the face-up on the table.
Short-stacked Niclas Svensson shoved his 54,000 in the middle from the cut off and Juan Maceiras instantly moved all in from the button. Everyone else gets out of the way and the cards are shown:
Juan
Niclas
The flop is a decisive giving Niclas two pair. The turn and river do not bring the third jack for Juan and Niclas is back over 100,000.
Action folded around to Mathias Viberg on the button, who opened with a 28,000 raise. Mehdi Ouakhir made the call from the big blind, creating heads-up action going into the flop, which came . Medhi attempted to take control of the hand by leading out with a 35,000 bet, but Mathias came right back with a 200,000 raise, prompting Mehdi to fold his Q-3 face-up on the table.
After the small victory, Viberg sits with just under 800,000 in chips.
Juan Maceiras raises to 26,000 the hand after his big fold and Trond Eidsvig moved all in from the small blind for 85,000. This time Juan calls but finds himself behind:
Juan
Trond
Trond keeps the lead on the flop which is , the turn brings some chop possibilities as is is the . The river is not what Trond wanted to see as it fell the , sending Trond Eidsvig to the rail in eighth place winning $88,356.
Christian raises it up to 26,000 UTG and Juan Maceiras made it 100,000 from mid position. All pass back to Christian who moves all in for 212,000. Juan takes a lot longer than expected considering he is getting almost exactly 3:1 pot odds but eventually to the surprise of the watching crowd he opts to fold giving a 335,000 chip pot to Christian.
It seems as though Mehdi Ouakhir has just one move in his arsenal: all in. He's just shoved all of his chips into the middle in back-to-back hands; the most recent being a three-way pot with Michael Schulze and Juan Lapido Maceiras.
Schulze opened the pot with a 25,000 raise from under-the-gun which was called by Mehdi from the button and Juan in the big blind. The flop came and the action checked around to Mehdi who shoved all in, prompting both Schulze and Maceiras to fold. His strategy, simple and so far effective, has driven him back up to ~180,000 in chips.