Kevin Iacofano opened the pot with a 37,000-chip raise under the gun and Matt Zoorob re-popped it to 106,000 on the button. Iacofano tanked for a bit and announced he was all in. Zoorob eventually called.
Showdown
Kevin Iacofano:
Matt Zoorob:
Board:
Zoorob leaves us in 13th place and took home $17,488.
Usually, when players go into the tank before the flop, they wind up folding their hand. Thus we were expecting a fold from Conrad Monica in a recent hand against Carter Phillips. Hugo Perez opened to 36,000 in front of Monica, who called on the button. Phillips, from the big blind, then moved all in.
"Really!" said Perez. He quickly folded. That put the decision to Monica, who had 300,000 behind. He thought it over for about a minute before announcing, "Call."
Monica:
Phillips:
If the chips hadn't gone all in pre-flop, they surely would have gone in on an action flop of . Phillips made top two pair; Monica had a double-digit draw. The board blanked out and to end Monica's run. He leaves in 14th place with $17,488.
Mark Flowers opened the pot with a 31,000-chip raise under the gun and Michael Meyers went all in in the small blind. Flowers called and tabled . Meyers tabled pocket fives and the river of the board gave him the 15h place in this tournament.
On one of the very first hands of the day on our feature table, action passed to Jesse Martin in late position. He opened all in with and was re-raised all in by Alexander Wilson. Wilson tabled two tens and the race was on. Wilson emerged victorious on a board of , sending Martin to the rail before all of the players had settled into their seats.
Two days and twenty levels of play have pared a field of 1,663 players by 99%. Today the final 16 will return to play out the rest of the tournament and crown a champion.
The man at the top of the counts is no stranger to that position. Carter Phillips hit the poker scene last year, just missing out on an LAPT final table in Chile before making two final tables at EPT Barcelona in September -- including winning the Main Event for a payday worth roughly $1.2 million. Since then he burnished his credentials with a final table at the Tunica WSOP Circuit event, where he took fifth place.
But there are 15 other players in the field all with their eye on the gold bracelet. The most formidable of those opponents may very well be Craig Bergeron, an online player of some renown who fourth place at EPT Deauville earlier this year and who will start the day 6th in chips.
We expect to reach the final table of six in about 3-4 hours of play. After that, it's anybody's guess how long this thing will take to play out. It could be four hours; it could be eight hours. However long it takes, PokerNews will report the action live from the floor until the final river card is dealt.
We'll start things off at 2:30pm local time, in about 35 minutes.