While checking the tournament area, we spotted Mike Leah standing up away from his table with his belongings in tow. A quick chat with him revealed that he was all in with pocket threes versus . The board delivered two pair, nines and queens, and Leah was counterfeited.
Aaron Lim raised and then called off an all-in bet by a short stack one seat over with the . He was behind against pocket jacks, but the flop saw him improve to a set. The turn changed nothing and his opponent nodded in defeat before the river completed the board.
You could hear a "just to rub it in" by another player on the table and Lim's stack grew thanks to the pot.
Another two players are well above three times the starting stack. David Bowen is near the top of the current leader board and hot on his heels is Lukas Byrns. We just saw the latter three-bet an opening raise from 400 to 1,200. The initial raiser called to see the heads-up flop of . Action was checked to Byrns, and he took down the pot with a bet of 2,500.
Heinz Kamutzki open-shoved for his last 1,300 or so with pocket deuces and got called by an opponent with . The smallest pocket pair in Texas hold'em didn't hold up and the German headed to the rail.
In other news, Lukas Byrns is doing much better and currently boasts one of the big stacks with 12,000.
Back on July 14, the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event final table was set. The players in this year's "November Nine" are set to resume play on November 10, and it is a globally diverse group of young players who will be battling it out for the $10 million top prize.
In a recent Five Thoughts piece, Rich Ryan put the odds of Mark Newhouse making back-to-back WSOP Main Event final tables at 524,558-1. Last year, Newhouse made the November Nine, but bowed out in ninth place. This year, he plans to improve upon that finish, but he has already defied the odds and made poker history by becoming the first player since Dan Harrington to make back-to-back WSOP Main Event final tables (Ryan put Harrington's odds of doing so in 2003 and 2004 at 26,312-1).
Newhouse will enter the final table in November third in chips with 26 million.