With his good friend Emad Alabsi standing by to sweat from the rail, James Woods just shoved all-in to force two players off the pot, but to hear Alabsi tell it the move was ill-timed. Here's what we saw:
The board read by the turn and Woods was riding a short stack of 3,150 while sitting in the small blind. He knuckled the felt and elicited a bet of 1,400 by the big blind, a bet which the button decided to flat.
That's when Woods sprung his trap and raised all in for 1,750 more, a move which Alabsi seemed to approve of.
"I love that shove..." he told us as Woods' opponet's contemplated their options. "Love it."
Alabsi is no slouch on the felt himself, as a man with more than $1 million an earnings and two recent titles on the East Coast - including a $164,469 score at a $1650 Parx Casino Big Stax V event - knows how to play the game.
Soon enough, Woods' power play worked its magic and both of his opponent's laid down to the pressure, and with this reporter's hovering gathering attention, the table beckoned Woods to "show the bluff to PokerNews."
Woods called Elabsi over to the table and flashed his hand to his good friend, showing the for the stone cold nuts. Having seen Woods scare off two opponents with the best hand possible at the time, Alabsi's previous enthusiasm over the play was dampened, and he began to offer his own opinion on the hand to the actor and poker enthusiast who served as his best man a few years back.
If he wins two bracelets in a week, that should just about a do it, and with double the starting stack at the moment, he is squarely in contention for another deep run.
A recent hand saw Cartwright shove all in on the flop with the board reading . He was acting from the small blind, and from what we could gather he had come over the top of a 2,800 wager which was either a bet or a raise. In any event, Cartwright soon had the "all-in" button in front of his 20,000-chip stack, and his opponent diving deep into the tank to assess his spot.
Eventually though, that player surrendered and the sizable pot was sent Cartwright's way, giving him about double the average late in this first day of play.
With the field dwindling on every hand dealt and just 400 runners remaining, take a look at the updated chip counts for as many pros and notable names as we could find.
We heard a collective shout at the sight of a river card while recording Keven Stammen's recent elimination of a player, and after heading over to take a look, it turned out Idris Drief had cracked jacks with his pair of threes.
According to an extremely relieved Drief, he raised before the flop and one opponent flatted to see the dealer fan . With in the hole and a baby card board, Drief read his man for ace-king and fired away with a c-bet of 800.
The other player in the hand liked his holding, however, and he raised to 2,500, leaving Drief to make an all-in shove for 5,825 hoping he had caught a big slick bluff. Unfortunately for him the read was off base, as he was actually up against .
The turn card came to provide the requisite sweat, as Drief picked up a gutshot straight draw, but it was the on the river that left the table gasping at the suckout.
We just caught the tail end of a confrontation which resulted in Stammen sending an unfortunate player to the rail, after the "Stammdog" caught a fortuitous four-flush runout to come from behind and steal a pot.
Stammen held , while his unlucky opponent had , and although the flop came king-high, hearts on the turn and river gave the pro a winning flush.