After so long with the all in moves both relatively frequent and uncalled, a big pot just started brewing with a Chris Bjorin preflop raise to 85k, got hotter with James Akenhead's moving all in for under 500k, and came to the boil as Daniel Negreanu reshoved over the top. Bjorin got out of the way (showing his mucked ) and the two of them were on their backs:
Akenhead:
Negreanu:
Akenhead could only watch as the board ran out an aceless sending him first to the rail out of the final table, having not really had a chance to show his stuff to his full ability today. He may be a little disappointed, but as one of the November Nine he gets to experience all the drama of a WSOP Main Final again in Vegas next month.
Barry Shulman's stack continues to climb -- he's just broken the 2 million mark.
He raised to 80,000 in mid position and called a cutoff reraise from Praz Bansi. It had all the makings of a very exciting hand -- but then both players proceeded to check down the board. Shulman turned over , and it was enough to make Praz muck.
A strange hand just played out, interesting despite the total lack of showdown or board... Chris Bjorin started it off by limping in the cutoff, which prompted small blind Praz Bansi to limp along. Then big blind Markus Ristola raised a further 160k. He probably wasn't looking for a reraise all-in from Bjorin, though, as he passed almost as quickly as Bansi when the option returned to him.
Jason Mercier raised, and Markus Ristola shoved, just like that. Mercier folded with a sigh, and we have yet to witness any kind of bustage. Even a double-up would do right now to be honest.
There was around 400,000 in the pot, with the board reading . Barry Shulman in the cutoff bet out 175,000, meaning that a third of his stack was in the middle. On the button, Jason Mercier called him -- but mucked when Shulman turned over for, well, ace-queen high.
But despite his best efforts, the phlegmatic Frenchman doesn't seem to be getting the calls preflop. Not that it matters, when he can pick off 80k or so a time (plus blinds) reraising over players like Chris Bjorin, his last shove victim. Bjorin really thought about making the call, it looks like, this time, what with all the stack counting and the staring, but he gave it up with a sigh.