Action Slows Before Dinner

Fifteen players started the third level of the day, Level 32, and the pressure to make the final table grows with each level. Blinds have now reached the astronomical sums of 100,000/200,000 with a Day 1 starting stack of 30,000 for the ante.

The first elimination of the level came when Nick Maimone open-raised to 450,000 and Eric Buchman called from the small blind. The flop came       and Buchman check-raised Maimone, who bet 900,000, all-in. Maimone’s all-in was 4,505,000 and he held    . Buchman tabled     for the best hand. Maimone had to draw to his two over cards or a King for the straight, but the   turn card gave Buchman trips and Maimone was left drawing to a King for the straight. The river was the   and Maimone’s Main Event came to an end with a 15th place finish.

The lack of eliminations was due to lack of action. The chipleaders were reshuffled with several big hands. Antoine Saout chipped up from 8,625,000 to 13,020,000 and James Calderaro moved up from 2,940,000 to 5,700,000.

On the opposite end of things Kevin Schaffel went from 13,485,000 down to 9,500,000. The most drastic loss came from James Akenhead. He sat comfortably in the middle of the leaderboard at the start of the level with 10,215,000 and is now in survival mode with nearly 5,000,000.