The action was already on Bryan Porter when I arrived, but a quick glance at the felt revealed the probable action: under the gun, Porter had opened for 38,000, Steven Brown had reraised from middle position to 138,000 and the decision was now on Shaun Malough in the small blind. After a few moments, he announced all-in and pushed his short stack of 185,000 across the felt.
Back round to Porter who hesitated, before announcing all-in himself for around 450,000. Brown, who had a similar stack, made the fold, and we had a showdown, Porter in commanding shape with versus .
The flop, however, favored Malough, the dealer laying an eventful onto the felt. Malough punched the immediate air, but it wasn't over yet, he still had six outs to dodge. But dodge he did, the turn and river coming and respectively and Malough picking up the pot with the nut flush.
Steven Brown open-shoved from middle position and Peter Dawson called on the button. The blinds released and the hands were tabled:
Showdown
Brown:
Dawson:
The flop was rather harmless for Dawson, but the on the turn gave Brown nine more outs. The was one of those outs, and when it spiked on the river Brown made the nut flush sending Dawson packing.
Brown's good fortune has him sitting with 575,000 chips.
Stephen Chidwick is left with just 20,000 chips after losing a massive pot to Jesse Rockowitz.
According to Josh Brikis, Chidwick opened to 35,000 in the cutoff and Rockowitz three-bet to 105,000 from the big blind. Chidwick four-bet shoved and Rockowitz snapped it off.
Chidwick was way behind with against the two kings of Rockowitz and found no help from the board.
Rockowitz is up to 1,200,000 chips while Chidwick is dangerously short.
After all that movement of chips, it is Sam Trickett who has come out smelling or roses. With 27 players remaining, he is the current chip leader with 1,500,000.
I joined the action with Christopher Greene (cut-off) all in preflop and with Thiago Nishijima (mid-late position) and Larry Wilder (button) battling it out for the side pot.
The flop came , and after Nishijima checked, Wilder announced all-in for a rather heft amount.
Nishijima mulled over his decision for a few moments before making the call and showing . Wilder tabled , whilst Greene faced a similar struggle with .
The turn teased a backdoor flush, but to no avail as the river came a close-but-no-cigar .
"Yes!" yelped Nishijima in delight as a disappointed Greene -"Why couldn't it have been a five?" - departed, and Wilder began to slide over the chips.
A few eyes widened over the time it took for the call to be made, but when he was politely question about it, Nishijima responded: "It was for a lot of chips."
My take: no intent. We are, after all, down to the gritty, and no one wants to make a mistake, especially for a 1,300,000 pot.