Like a master-ninja-in-training, Allen Kessler is ducking and diving his way through the field today and just managed to survive to double up to around the 11,000 mark.
A simple case of against and an aceless/kingless board which turned Kessler's 5,550 stack into a much more palpable 11,500.
You can see the frustration etched on the face of Richard Hawes as he is forced to nurture his short stack of 3,500. It's not all bad news, though, as his discipline has won him the exclusive title of PokerNews Grinder of the Day.
But with blinds just about to go up to 200/400, he'll have less than 10 big blinds and will surely be looking to make a move.
Levi Twindley tried getting another opponent off a hand (unless it was a tracing paper thin value bet) but again he was called and lost. He was UTG and up against Tommy Vedes and the BB. The board read at the turn and Twindley was the only caller after Vedes bet 1,275. The river came and Twindley led out for 1,875. Call.
Twindley tabled for a pair of fives but lost out to Vedes' . Vedes up to 25,000 but Twindley still going well on 24,000.
Surinder Sunar has been eliminated after getting it in miles ahead with against but the board unhelpfuly came making his opponent a full house to knock out the former WPT champion.
Justin Smith pushed preflop for around 5,600 with and found someone else pushing behind him with the old . A fair uninteresting board, coming was enough to end Smith's sojourn in this tournament after a countdown revealed he was the shorter of the two stacks.
Martin Hogarty has been eliminated by Song Lee who moved up to 20,000 chips. We reached the action at the river where the board read . Hogarty was first to speak from the BB and he pushed all-in for 3,050 (pot was about 8k by now) and Lee made the call after he got a count. Hogart tabled but lost out to Lee's .
Phil Laak has been eliminated from the event, he had previously 3-bet against a raise and a call. The originally raiser folded but then the caller pushed and Laak himself folded.
We saw Laak's chips being moved across to the button when he was in the cut-off, the latter holding to his and a king-high board indicating that maybe he had mistimed a move.