The tournament clock makes mention of 340 entries so far today. That makes for 10,200,000 of chips in play at the moment. The average amount for the 302 players who still have chips in front of them is a little under 34,000.
Fabrice Soulier raised to 700 and a player in position called. A third player got involved and he three-bet to 2,025. The action was folded back to Soulier who went into the tank for quite a bit before four-betting to 6,400.
Both Soulier's opponents gave it some serious thought before eventually letting go of their hand. Soulier's up to 44,000 and looking good.
We're not entirely sure what just happened, but Ilia Iliaguev sure didn't look happy.
His frustration came from a hand where he doubled Olivier Busquet. When we arrived all the cards were already out on the table and Iliaguev's set of nines on was being mucked by the dealer, that hand wasn't good enough.
Busquet had in front of him and he doubled up to just under 19,000. When all the chips went to the middle is unclear at this point.
The board read and Hannes Speiser, a PokerStars player from Austraia had bet big, big enough to put his opponent all in. Jakob Karlsson, a fellow PokerStars player from Sweden stared his opponent down. His tournament life was on the line and they both knew it. Level upon level. Karlsson eventually made the call and was dismayed to see Speiser turn over . Karlsson’s cards hit the muck despite a requirement to turn them over on all-in situations so we don’t know what he made the call with. Whatever it was it was behind and he exited the tournament.
A player raised to 600 and Adrian Diaz called in position after which Raoul Refos three-bet to 1,900. The action folded back to Diaz who tanked for a bit before making the call.
The flop brought and Diaz check-called 1,500. The turn brought the and this time Refos bet 2,375 after Diaz had checked.
The river completed the board with the and this time Refos opted to check behind. Diaz quickly tabled and that was enough to take down the pot.
Benjamin Jones, a PokerStars player from the UK had three-bet to 2,800 from the big blind and got two callers including Boutros Naim, a qualifier from Lebanon. They saw a flop of which was checked by Jones and the other player. Naim bet 3,100, Jones made the call and they went to the turn heads up. The dealer put out and again Jones made the check and was faced by a bet of 5,100 from Naim. Jones asked to see his opponent’s stack which was about 22,000 and made the check-raise to 13,500. Naim now asked to see Jones’s stack and saw that he hadn’t left himself a whole lot behind. Naim continued to chew his gum and from behind his dark glasses decided to check his hole cards. There was a lot of spades on that board. Naim chewed some more and slid his cards to the dealer.