Kassouf in the Big Top
William Kassouf walked away from the feature table after winning the final hand into the break and learned that during the first two levels, not only has the field been reduced from 25 to 20 players, but that he is on top of the lot of them.
"Oh, wow. That's great. You saw how I got there, I assume. I gambled with the nuts. I had the absolute coconuts and he called with pocket fives, we had lift off on the flop as a rocket came and bricka-bricka, the dealer duly obliged. Marvellous."
While Kassouf took a rare breath, we asked him a serious question about how pleased he was with the table draw. Kassouf avoided Cate Hall in the overnight re-draw, but has been sat next to the other big stack in the chipcounts, Marco Recognaschi.
"I was pleased, obviously. I had him [Recognaschi] on my right, which was important. I felt like I was really unlucky yesterday, I had house under house, ran a flush into a full house on the river and lost another two big pots in coolers. Today, so far, I've got some reward for my play."
He's coming back to the action in charge, but Kassouf knows that in Texas No Limit Hold'em, it can all change in the blink of an eye.
"There's still a long way to go and anything can happen. It's a nice time to have a stack, because the blinds have gone up and we haven't lost many, so it's good for me. But let's see. A very long way to go."
Kassouf returns to the table, talking to almost every player as he does at every table he sits at. The circus might be in town, but Kassouf isn't the clown in the tent at the moment. Right now, he's the ringmaster.