November Niner Phil Ivey will be jetting back to his hotel room; he ran middle set into top set and the nut flush draw, and failed to find that one out.
He may be heading towards his eighties, but there's plenty of fight left in Doyle Brunson. After dropping down to just a couple of thousand, he's now worked his way back above his starting stack with 9,500.
Neighbour Andy Bloch couldn't echo this sentiment, and has since departed.
Yes, Jeff Duvall is indeed crippled, and Roland De Wolfe was the man responsible. I didn't catch Duvall's hand, but it was academic as De Wolfe had the nuts with on a board.
I thought it was a little quiet upstairs... Michael Greco filled me in on the details: "He raised it up with A-A under the gun and received four callers, including Jeff [Buffenbergar] in the blind. Jeff pushed a 4-4-5 flop with K-4 and Hellmuth called. Then, on the Omaha round, his final chips went in with a nut flush draw against a wrap and a set."
If ever the acting or poker dries up, I'm sure there'd be a spot on the PokerNews blogging team for Greco. Good reporting.
A quick perusal around the two tables at the top of the main staircase inside the Casino at the Empire's tournament floor revealed the following tournament tidbits:
Jeff Lisandro is sitting with 7,000, looking dapper as always
Jeff Duvall was just crippled -- left with 1,400 in chips
Huck Seed, who came to London after spending a week in Cyprus, is sitting on 13,500
Neil Channing has just under the starting stack size of 7,325
and Roland De Wolfe, who seems to have stolen away Phil Ivey's masseuse, has just over 16,000 in chips
Joe Beevers has also hit the deck. A lot of exits seems to be occuring in Omaha, and the Hendon Mobber's departure was no exception, his flopped set unable to hold up against Huck Seed's flush draw.
Juha Helppi was last spotted walking around upstairs, mumbling on his phone and with a menacing frown plastered across his face. Detective hat on: he's out.
"Easy table?" observed Stuart Nash with a smirk. But despite being swamped by big names (Brunson, Bloch, Helppi, Greenstein), Willie Tann has just managed to double up his depleted stack and increased his tally 5,500 as a result.
With two or three limpers before him, Tann made it 1,000 from late position and received two callers, including Brunson and Bloch.
On the flop, the action folded around to Tann who pushed all in for a total of 1,150. Bloch was the sole caller.
"Just aces," declared Tann nervously as he revealed . But he had his nose in front, Bloch flipping onto the felt. A harmless and later, and the Brit scooped the pot.
Bloch, meanwhile, has taken a hit his stack can ill afford, and is consequently down to 2,100.
I overheard Stuart Nash on the rail, mumbling something along the lines of: "... The flop came and he had ..." Further investigation revealed that Nash had flopped top set, although I never unveiled the game. "I had over 11,000 after 15 minutes," he added. "Then that happened."