Day Three of the World Poker FinalsOne Player Until the Money Bubble Bursts |
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With 130 players returning to play five levels of poker, it was tough to foresee whether or not the 50-player money bubble would be reached. As short stacks clung to life and tried to survive, the seasoned professionals feasted on their opponent's chips to put themselves in contention for the $1.7 million dollar first-place prize.
6 6
. Smith moved all in and Matt Graham made the call. Smith showed K 10
and Graham showed K
Q for the better kicker. The turn and river came 5 J to eliminate Smith and keep Graham amongst the chip leaders. Halfway through the day, he became the first player to cross the million in chips mark. He wasn't alone at the top, however, as a number of players made a strong push to get to the top of the leaderboard.
Tom "durrrr" Dwan had the whole room talking with his bluff against Arthur Azen. Dwan raised to 8,000 and Azen reraised to 30,000. Dwan moved all in for an additional 133,600 more and Azen went into the tank. Eventually he asked, "You have 7-4 again?" When he didn't get an answer he said, "It's probably not much better." After a few more minutes of contemplating, Azen mucked his J J face up. Dwan turned over 7 4 and Alex Jacob, who had been quiet and motionless the entire time, suddenly jumped from his seat. Dwan gave a mischievous smile as the dealer pushed him the pot, but his confrontations with Azen were far from over. Over the course of the next three hours Dwan would take over 250,000 from Azen with some bluffs and a well-timed flush.
Freddy Deeb caught cards all day long to make a serious run at the chip lead. After taking most of Frankie Flowers' stack, he cracked pocket aces with 5-2 suited and then took out Adam "Roothlus" Levy. Then Deeb raised from the button to 15,000, and Jeff Feuerman called from the big blind. The flop came 9 9 6, and both players checked. The turn card was the 8 and Feuerman bet 25,000. Deeb called and the river was the Q. Feuerman bet 80,000 and Deeb thought for about 30 seconds before announcing he was all in. Feuerman stood up with 215,000 behind and called, showing 10 9. Deeb showed Q 9 for a full house and took the monster pot.
Nick "TheTakeover" Schulman, who won this event two years ago, almost had a catastrophic situation occur when his pocket kings were up against an opponent's pocket jacks. Seat 9 moved all in and Schulman instantly called from the big blind turning over K K. His opponent showed J J and obviously needed some help to survive. That help almost came in the form of the dealer, who thought Schulman was mucking his hand. As she began to scoop up the cards and award his opponent the pot, the entire table shouted for her to stop. Luckily, the deck was not mixed and the hands were given back to their respected owners. The board came 6 5 2 K 7 and Schulman eliminated his opponent while adding 100,000 to his stack. An awkward situation was narrowly avoided and Schulman boosted his stack enough to join the others at the top of the chip counts.
Here are the top 10 chip counts:
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