Thursday, October 1, 2009 5:21 PM Local Time
Barry Shulman and Daniel Negreanu made it as far as the river of the
board when Negreanu took the pot down with a bet that Shulman couldn't call. Negreanu pushed his hole cards around on the felt, mixing them up. "Pick a card," he said, "Any card." Shulman pointed to the one on the right -- and Negreanu flipped the
.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 5:18 PM Local Time
TD Jack Effel, reading off a bit of paper:
"A man comes home from a poker game and his wife is angry. 'Where have you been?' she says. 'At the poker game,' says the husband. 'I lost you in a hand, you have to leave.' 'How did you do that?' said the wife. 'It wasn't easy,' replied the husband, 'I had to fold a royal flush.'"
Except for a couple of muted boos, silence reigned.
Then to media doyen Nolan Dalla:
"Nolan, you've got to write better material than this."
Thursday, October 1, 2009 5:15 PM Local Time
It seems the blinds have now reached a level where the shorter stacks (500-700k) are no longer comfortable. Action was predicted to come thick and fast in this 20k/40k level, and so far it really has. Just now it was Matt Hawrilenko's turn to move in twice (no caller). Expect the lower four stacks (him, Bjorin, Bansi and Saout) to be putting the bigger stacks to the double-me-or-bust-me test.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 5:13 PM Local Time
Next hand, Markus Ristola raised again, and Daniel Negreanu called again. Then Barry Shulman called from the big blind too, shattering the illusion that time had merely got stuck on a loop, and we saw a flop.
All three players checked the
flop, and TD Jack Effel's microphone suddenly got very loud. "That was loud," he said into it, and he reverberated around the casino at high volume.
As Mr. Effel continued to deafen everyone saying, "Testing," repeatedly into his super-mega-high-volume mic, the players saw a
turn and Ristola announced all in. Both players folded and Ristola took the pot, putting him up to 1,455,000.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 5:06 PM Local Time
A raise from Markus Ristola to 100k brought calls from both Chris Bjorin and Daniel Negreanu (both in position on him).
Their threeway flop:
Ristola bet 175k, and after a pause Bjorin passed and Negreanu did the same.
Meanwhile Ristola calmly chip threaded his way through the dwell period and picked up the nice 250k.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:39 PM Local Time
Things have got so serious up here on final table that they're getting rid of the 1,000-denomination chips. Back soon, eight-handed.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:39 PM Local Time
Seat 1: Barry Shulman - 2,037,000
Seat 2: Jason Mercier - 3,245,000
Seat 3: Praz Bansi - 654,000
Seat 4: Markus Ristola - 600,000
Seat 5: Chris Bjorin - 818,000
Seat 6: Empty
Seat 7: Daneil Negreanu - 1,578,000
Seat 8: Antoine Saout - 617,000
Seat 9: Matt Hawrilenko - 487,000
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:38 PM Local Time
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.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:32 PM Local Time
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.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:27 PM Local Time
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.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:27 PM Local Time
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.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:23 PM Local Time
Wow, here's some strangeness.
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.
Shulman - 1,816,000
Mercier - 3,336,000
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:21 PM Local Time
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.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:10 PM Local Time
Wow, all of a sudden things are happening. As if inspired by that Negreanu/Mercier Monster Pot, Markus Ristola raised from the button. In similar spirit, Chris Bjorin moved all in from the small blind. Ristola folded, though.
Picking up that pot bumped Bjorin up and out of the Official Short Stack position -- that dubious honour now goes to James Akenhead.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:10 PM Local Time
A lot of Daniel Negreanu's hard work building his stack up to the second place level has been undone just now with a big confrontation vs. Jason Mercier. The million+ pot started out as a standard sort of hand, with Negreanu calling Mercier pre and then both players checking the
flop. So far, so standard for the last four hours.
The
turn saw another check from Negreanu, and a bet of 220k from Mercier. Negreanu made the call.
The river was the
, and now a third check from Negreanu saw a bet of 383k from Mercier. As Negreanu counted out the chips, it looked like he wasn't going anywhere - and sure enough he called, having built the largest pot of the day so far.
Unfortunately his
had always been behind Mercier's
and the sneaky twosome were left counting their respective stacks:
Mercier - 3,734,000
Negreanu - 1,112,000
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:01 PM Local Time
Antoine Saout makes it 80k to go preflop, but looks even less enamoured with proceedings than usual as Jason Mercier moves all in... he relinquishes the pot and there's a flash of some Eights, it looked like, but whose they were wasn't announced.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:00 PM Local Time
In fact, further to receiving his over-the-rail massage, Daniel Negreanu now seems to have entirely given up on this final table -- he's seated himself on the wrong side of the rail and appears to be thoroughly enjoying the proper, sitting-down massage he's now getting, only occasionally glancing up to see if anything interesting has happened up on FT. Extraordinary.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 3:57 PM Local Time
Antoine Saout limped in, and the action folded to Barry Shulman in the small blind. Quiet for some time up until this point, Shulman now raised to around 200,000. Saout dwelled up silently and sleepily, while Daniel Negreanu wandered off to receive a standing massage from one the of the masseuses across the rail. While the logistics of the massage were being worked out, Saout silently folded, and they moved on to the next hand.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 3:50 PM Local Time
Antoine Saout moved all in!
But nobody called, and we move on to the next hand.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 3:49 PM Local Time
The last few hands have been even more mysterious -- they've all been taken down with a single preflop raise. No one player seems to be more aggressive or passive than any of the others. We are beginning to fear that this high-class field has reached a kind of stalemate...