It was recently brought to our attention that one of the remaining players in today's field is none other than Chamath Palihapitiya, former VP of Growth, Mobile and International for Facebook. Back in June, Palihapitiya left Facebook to launch the Social+Capital Partnership. In the meantime, it appears he's found time to play a little poker.
"Chamath Palihapitiya is the Vice President of User Growth, Mobile and International at Facebook and, since 2008, has led a cross functional team responsible for driving the growth of Facebook's userbase through product, virality, marketing and internationalization efforts on both the web and mobile. Prior to his current role at Facebook, Chamath oversaw Facebook Platform from its launch in 2007 and led the team that built and initially scaled Facebook’s online advertising product. Chamath joined Facebook from The Mayfield Fund, a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley where he led consumer Internet, advertising and technology investments. Prior to Mayfield, Chamath spent five years with AOL in roles of increasing responsibility, culminating in his position as the Vice President and General Manager of AIM and ICQ. Chamath began his career as a derivatives trader before leaving finance to work for Internet music pioneers Winamp and Spinner.com. Chamath grew up in Canada and graduated first class honors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo."
Palihapitiya is currently sitting on a stack of 700,000.
The remaining players are currently taking their first 25-minute break of the day.
The first bit of exciting news to occur during the first level of play today is Ben Lamb's ascension to the top of the WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard. With his deep run in this years Main Event he has officially overtaken Phil Hellmuth for the top position. Lamb is also currently sitting second in chips with 5,600,000.
The only person ahead of Lamb is Phil Collins, who has a commanding chip lead over the field with 7,660,000. Bryan Devonshire rounds out the top three with 4,900,000.
The first level of play today saw casualties of names such as Rupert Elder, Guiseppe Pastura, and Peter Feldman. The remaining 114 players will return after this break for one more two-hour level of play before the dinner break.
Just before the last break, Bryan Colin got all in preflop for 465,000 and was up against Nicolas Fierro.
Showdown
Fierro:
Colin:
Colin was dominated by Fierro's cowboys and desperately needed a third eight. Unfortunately for him, the board ran out and his Main Event run came to an end.
We have just finished the first break of the Main Event here in Day 6 and there are still a few Team PokerStars Pros going strong. Sebastian Ruthenberg is leading the Team Pros with 3,865,000 in chips.
We caught action in the middle of a big hand when Ruthenberg increased his stack by 620,000 in chips. With 250,000 already in the pot and the board showing Peter Gelencser bet 177,000 and Ruthenberg called. The river brought the and Gelencser bet 311,000. Ruthenberg raised to over a million chips and Gelencser folded his cards into the muck.
Other Team Pros in the field are JP Kelly with 2,710,000 in chips and Tony Hachem with 1,800,000. There is also one PokerStars Team Online Pro left in the field, Andrew Brokos with 1,240,000. Alongside these Team Pros still in the field are PokerStars Qualifiers who include Per Linde with 2,890,000, Julian Stuer with 1,215,000 and Philipp Gruissem with 545,000 in chips.
You can continue to follow all the action here on PokerNews and follow your favorite PokerStars Team Pros on the PokerStars Blog here.
Joesph Cheong makes his exit from the 2011 WSOP Main Event.
Joseph Cheong's hope of making it back-to-back November Nine appearances has come to an abrupt end at the hands of Phil Collins.
The action folded around to Collins who raised to 75,000 from the cutoff before Cheong re-raised out of the small blind, making it 200,000 to go. Collins snap-shoved and Cheong called, tabling but found himself crushed by Collins' !
Despite pairing up on the flop of , the turn and river ran out , and Cheong was eliminated. There's no stopping Collins now - he's dominating this field with more than 8.6 million in chips!
Bryan Follain opened with a button raise, then Jens Kyllonen made it 129,000 more from the small blind. The big blind got out, Follain reraised all in, and Kyllonen called with his remaining chips.
Kyllonen:
Follain:
The board came , and Kyllonen is out. Follain, meanwhile, is now stacking a nifty 4.89 million.
Action folded to Brian Yoon in the hijack and he raised to 63,000. A short-stacked Jamie Shaevel was next to act in the cutoff and simply moved all in for 120,000. The rest of the field cleared out and Yoon made the call.
Showdown
Yoon:
Shaevel:
The flop was disaster for Shaevel as Yoon hit a set; however, the turn did give him an open-ended straight draw. Wouldn't you know it, the river completed that draw and allowed Shaevel to double, though he is still extremely short.
Alexander Dietrich has just over 300,000 chips left when he got them all into the middle with . He seemed content to race against Aleksandr Mozhnyakov's for double or nothing, but it would ultimately be nothing.
The board came , and the king on the flop is all she wrote for Dietrich. He's been sent off to the payout clerk, while Mozhnyakov climbs his way up to 3.7 million or so.
![[user153638]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
and his Main Event run came to an end.
Peter Gelencser bet 177,000 and Ruthenberg called. The river brought the 
and Gelencser bet 311,000. Ruthenberg raised to over a million chips and Gelencser folded his cards into the muck.
but found himself crushed by Collins' 
, the turn and river ran out 
, 
and Cheong was eliminated. There's no stopping Collins now - he's dominating this field with more than 8.6 million in chips!
flop was disaster for Shaevel as Yoon hit a set; however, the 
turn did give him an open-ended straight draw. Wouldn't you know it, the 
. He seemed content to race against Aleksandr Mozhnyakov's 
for double or nothing, but it would ultimately be nothing.