Event #57: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT - World Championship

Brent Hanks five-bet shoved for around 800,000, and John Racener snap called. Uhoh.

Racener:  

Hanks:  

The board fell  , and Hanks discovered that he was slightly covered. He told Racener it was a well-played hand several times and wished him luck, leaving with his head held high. Hanks is out, but Racener's tournament is just beginning with around 1.7 million.

Jean-Robert Bellande opened for a raise, Alper Sar three-bet all-in for 205,000 and Bellande made the call.

Sar   

Bellande   

The board ran out       and Bellande took it down with two pair.

"I want everyone to know I'm calling reraises," Bellande said.

"That was a terrible call," Sar said as he departed the table.

"I know," Bellande replied. "But now I won't get reraised light."

Bellande is back up to 1.36 million.

And we're not talking about a table transfer. Bryn Kenney has just picked up two big pots to move his stack over two million in chips. Here's what happened in the back-to-back hands.

Action folded to Kenney in the cutoff seat and he raised to 30,000. The player in the small blind, Kelly Johnson, reraised to 60,000. After the big blind folded, Kenney made the call.

The flop came down     and Johnson fired 60,000. Kenney min-raised and made it 120,000. After a brief moment, Johnson moved all in for just about 380,000 and Kenney called. Kenney did take a microsecond to double check his hand and made sure he had.

What he had was a middle set of nines with the   . Johnson held the    for top pair and a backdoor flush draw. The turn was the   and the river the  , keeping Kenney ahead and eliminating Johnson.

On the next hand, Kenney called a raise from Vladislav Varlashin before the two saw a flop of    . Varlashin checked to Kenney, who bet 49,000. Varlashin raised to 140,000 and Kenney made the call.

Fourth street put the   on board and Varlashin checked to Kenney again. Kenney fired 140,000 and Varlashin made the call.

After the   paired the board on the river, Varlashin checked and Kenney fired 400,000. Varlashin mucked his hand and Kenney raked in the pot to put his stack over two million.

Joshua Weizer appeared primed to hit the 1,000,000 chip mark. He had Chad Wutke all in and on the ropes with   , needing help against Weizer's   .

However, the board ran out       giving Wutke two pair and the pot, upping his stack to 590,000. Weizer slipped to 445,000.

The chips were all in pre-flop for Brandon Wong and Steven Graham. Graam was at risk and showed the hand that needed to improve,   . Wong tabled a pair of sevens,   .

"Want to take it back and forget this happened?" Wong asked, eliciting laughter from the table. But it was Wong who took down the pot on a board of      . He increased his count to about 450,000 while Graham is off to the cage.

The remaining 312 players are off to a 90-minute dinner now to savor the fact that they've made it this far and to psych themselves up for the crucial next few hours. Perhaps they'll look for a way to combat the vortex sprang up in the middle of the room during the last level. The strange force sucked chip after chip into the area immediately in front of Matt Affleck. During the last two hours, Affleck amassed a stack large enough to break the 3 million chip barrier. He dropped slightly to 2.9 million right before dinner, but he is still by far the largest stack in the room heading to dinner.

Although the pace of eliminations slowed, there are still quite a few notables who didn't make it to the dinner break. Allie Prescott's tournament was cruelly cut short when he ran pocket kings into big slick. Adam Schoenfeld, Steven Burkholder, and Cole South also couldn't hang on. Jonathan Tamayo finished 21st in the Main Event last year, but he couldn't crack the top 300 this year. Danny Mizrachi was eliminated, leaving only two Mizrachi brothers to carry on the family fight. And poker media members Mori Eskandani and Eric Morris found their stints as players cut short.

Join us in 90 minutes for the next installment of Main Event drama. Cards back in the air at 7:40 pm.

U.S. paralympic athlete Marlon Shirley moved all in pre-flop for 90,000 with pocket queens. Shirley is aces on the track, but aces in this hand were dealt to Duy Le. Each player made a set,      . Le's set of aces was the best hand, ending Shirley's impressive tournament performance.

Dragan Galic was all in for about 340,000 before the flop, and he was put to the test by Vitaly Lunkin who had him covered by just a single T1,000 chip.

Showdown

Galic:    

Lunkin:    

Let's race, shall we? Galic stormed out to a big, early lead on the       flop, and Lunkin could not catch up. The turn   left him dead to his two-outer and the river   secured Galic's double up to about 680,000.

Lunkin's last lonely chip went in as the ante on the next hand, and he managed to find a decent     to work with. The board was          , though, and an oppoenent with     made the winning kings up to sent Lunkin to the exit.

The action thus far today (and really, for the duration of the tournament) has been unrelentingly furious, and we're all a little surprised to find ourselves down around 300 players left as the dinner break approaches. Just in the last hour or so, however, the pace has begun to slow noticeably. It's the first time in days that things have been calm and steady, and the clip of the eliminations is finally starting to taper off a tad.

The average stack is about 70 big blinds deep, and there just aren't many dangerously short stacks left in the room. Most of the middling stacks have plenty of chips to be patient and pick favorable spots, and it seems they're mostly content to do so for the time being.

We're about ten minutes from the dinner break.

Eric Morris has been grinding a short stack all day, and he made his last stand with   against Kevin Stani's  . "One time! One time, dealer! I'm using my one time card," Morris said. But let's hope this wasn't his one time since the flop came  , giving Stani a set. The   on the turn filled up Stani's boat, and after the   river, Morris wished the table luck and made his exit.