Three of the six Event 7 ($560 No-Limt Hold’em) starting flights are in the books. Friday’s Day 1C field drew 487 entries, 115 of which have punched their tickets to Day 2 on Sunday. The Day 1C chip leader, and now the overall chip leader, is Howard Mash with 398,400. David “Chino” Rheem was the only other player to bag more than 300,000 chips on Friday, finishing with 301,800 and he sits in second place overall.
Here are the top 10 chip counts from Day 1C:
1. Howard Mash – 398,400 2. Chino Rheem – 301,800 3. Neville Darrell – 276,200 4. Brayden Fritzshall – 275,000 5. Josh Palmer – 269,600 6. Blake Whittington – 235,800 7. Chris Jackson – 235,400 8. John DePersio – 211,500 9. Farid Jordan Dhaniani – 199,900 10. Bill Gazes – 197,200
As you can see, Aaron Salamon has completely turned it around from where he was when it was four-handed and he was the critical short stack. Now it’s Cory Blum who is dangerously close to the felt.
Just as this update was about to post, Blum got it all in with against Zhen Cai’s .
The board completed to — Cai flopped a flush draw, but Blum flopped a king-high flush that held up to win the pot. Cai doubled up to 172,000.
As the blinds increase to 10,000-20,000 with limits of 20,000-40,000, here are the updated counts:
As they take their last break of the day in the third flight of Event 7 ($560 NLHE w/ $1 Million Guarantee), the field has shrunk down to 180 players from a starting field of 487.
The blinds are increasing to 1,000-2,000 with a 200 ante, and the average stack is about 67,500 (33 big blinds).
Here is a look at the top of the leaderboard with one hour left in today’s play:
There are now five players remaining in Event 8 ($240 Omaha 8 or Better), and the key hand was a three-way preflop all-in situation.
Marla Crumpler was the short stack and all in from the big blind, against Jonathan Gallin in middle position and Zhen Cai on the button. Here were their cards:
Zhen Cai: Jonathan Gallin: Marla Crumpler:
Gallin had the best hand preflop, with A-K on the high side, A-2 on the low side, and a suited king.
But the board came , and Cai paired his seven on the flop to win the high side of both the main pot and the side pot. Cai and Gallin both chopped the low side with A-2, and Crumpler was eliminated in eighth place.
Gallin took a hit in the hand, getting quartered against Cai, and he was eliminated in seventh place a few minutes later.
As this post was being written, Robert Wachtel was eliminated in sixth place. And that’s where the field currently stands.
Here are updated chip counts for the final five players, with the blinds at 5,000-10,000, and the limits at 10,000-20,000:
The Day 1C field of Event 7 ($560 NLHE w/ $1 Million Guarantee) has dropped down to 207 players with about four hours left to play in this flight. The average chip stack is about 58,800 (49 big blinds).
Event 9 ($150 No-Limit Hold’em w/ Bounties) got underway at 1:00 pm, and attracted a field of 159 players. From the $150 buy-in, $70 goes into the main prizepool, and $50 goes into the bounty prizepool. Every time a player scores a knockout and busts a player, he or she receives $50.
There are currently 44 players remaining, and the average stack is about 21,700 (36 big blinds). The main prizepool has just been released for Event 9:
After the elimination of Daniel Yanofski in 11th place in Event 8 ($240 Omaha 8 or Better), the final ten players combined to a single table.
It didn’t take long before Debbie Mitchell got her short stack all in with against Zhen Cai’s .
The board came , and Cai won the pot by flopping two pair and rivering kings full of threes. Mitchell was eliminated in 10th place.
At that point, the official final table of nine players was set. Here are the updated chip counts with the blinds at 3,000-6,000, and the limits at 6,000-12,000.
10th: Debbie Mitchell – $368 11th: Daniel Yanofski – $368
There’s an interesting side note regarding Debbie Mitchell and Marla Crumpler.
As they combined to a 10-handed final table, Mitchell let us know that in 2008, she and Crumpler both made the final table of the 2008 WSOP $1,000 Ladies Event. That year, Mitchell busted sixth to earn $47,106, and Crumpler followed her in fifth place to earn $60,101.
The Money Bubble didn’t last long in Event 8 ($240 Omaha 8 or Better), and the unfortunate Bubble Girl was Gail Cohen, who finished 13th.
The remaining 12 players are guaranteed at least $368.
Tom Nasuti was eliminated shortly after the bubble burst, before we could take an updated chip count. Level 18 just began with increased blinds of 2,500-5,000, and limits of 5,000-10,000. (The numbers in parentheses represent the number of big bets in each stack.)
The final 18 players in Event 8 ($240 Omaha 8 or Better) returned to action at 1:00 pm. There were 105 entrants in this event, and the final 12 will finish in the money. Here’s how they started the day: