Seat 1: Andy Black
Seat 2: Chris Bell
Seat 3: Rob Hollink
Seat 4: Dan Shak
Seat 5: Joe Ritzie
Seat 6: --empty--
Seat 7: Felix Gubitz
Seat 8: Perry Green
Seat 9: Sergey Altbregin
Orange 337
Seat 1: Dave Ulliott
Seat 2: Erik Seidel
Seat 3: John Cernuto
Seat 4: Jeremy Harkin
Seat 5: Cam McKinley
Seat 6: Leif Force
Seat 7: David Hunt
Seat 8: Joe Ritzie
Seat 9: Nathan Wiesner
Before they'd had time to break a table following the exit of Dan Heimiller, a ridiculous pot nigh-on exploded at one of the other tables.
It looked as though Allen Kessler, Jeremy Harkin and Felix "RiverMe" Gubitz had put in 65,000 apiece preflop. Kessler got his last 27,000 in blind on the flop - and the other two followed suit.
Three-way all-in showdown!
Kessler:
Harkin:
Gubitz:
Board:
Harkin made a straight, and it was good enough to scoop the whole pot. Kessler busted, Gubitz was left with 13,000 or around one big blind, and although Harkin was still stacking his chips so we can't be certain, it looked as though he was chip leader on around 500,000.
Dan Heimiller probably didn't expect that his Day 3 in this event would conclude so swiftly. He played a hand against Perry Green, the second-place player to start the day. They two were heads-up to a flop of , with Green checking and then calling a bet of 70,000 from Heimiller.
The turn produced lots of drama when Green bet pot, which was enough to put the shorter-stacked Heimiller all in if he called. Heimiller tought that matter through for about two to three minutes before saying, "I've got to gamble," and putting his whole stack at risk with a call.
Heimiller: , a pair of eights and the nut spade draw
Green: , the nut low draw and the nut diamond draw
It turned out that Heimiller's hand was in the lead, but he'd need to dodge a boat-load of outs in order to scoop the pot. Heimiller's worst-case scenario was realized when a diamond, , hit the river to give Green the nut flush. Heimiller was out of board cards and thus is out of chips. He leaves in 19th place.
In a battle of the blinds, Rob Hollink raised pre-flop to 30,000 and was called by Cam McKinley. The rest of the chips went in on a flop of . McKinley made a set of kings, and was in the lead against Hollink's flush draw, . The turn and river came and to improve McKinely to an unnecessary straight. He doubled up to about 165,000.
Dan Heimiller, sitting in late position, opened for pot (35,000) pre-flop. David Nowakowski was in the small blind and re-raised to 115,000, almost enough to put himself all in. Heimiller tanked for about two minutes before just calling the raise. That call prompted Nowakowski to throw his last 13,000 into the pot blind, before the flop came.
Heimiller called the bet on a flop of . "I do have a flush draw," he said.
"So do I," Nowakowski responded.
"That's not good." Heimiller showed . His pair of fours was temporarily best against Nowakowski's . The turn gave Nowakowski a second flush draw, which filled with the river .
"That would have been a sick fade," said Nowakowski, meaning if he had somehow lost both halves of the pot by not improving. Instead he dragged the whole thing and is up to 260,000. Heimiller is down to 195,000.
Francis Lincoln got his whole stack in preflop and was up against Perry Green.
Lincoln:
Green:
Board:
After both players and the dealer had spent a little while assessing the hands it was established that Green had made a straight and a 6-5-4-3-A low to scoop the pot. With a polite, "Good luck, guys," Lincoln headed to the payout desk to collect his min-cash.
Green moved up to 440,000, a little bit closer to winning a fourth bracelet.
While we were watching a large pot develop on Chris Bell's table (Bell wound up folding the river), Vito Clemente was silently all in on one of the other tables. He was taken on by Leif Force, whose connected best with a board of by making trip sixes. Clemente couldn't do any better than that and so just a few minutes after unbagging his chips he heads to the payout cage to collect $11,479 for 21st place.
Indeed, a few players arrived rather late to this tournament as, basically, no-one had any idea when it was going to start. A lot of players arrived for the 3pm start time only to find themselves with nothing to do for almost two hours while Erik Seidel played a million dollar freeroll, and then owing to the vagueness of the few announcements that were made, wandered off and didn't get here for the very start.
Nevertheless it looks as though all the players have now taken their seats with varying amounts of grumbling, and cards are in the air. We are in for a very, very long night, and actually we wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a four day event in the course of time. If Erik Seidel makes it through to the final table, we could well see further scheduling problems tomorrow.
The TOC players are bagging up their chips for the day (huh?) so it seems we'll be underway momentarily. Again, this whole delay was because one player out the 21 remaining in our field -- Erik Seidel, with six big blinds left in his stack -- was playing in the TOC. We're not sure how the rest of the field feels about the delay, since it has made their day longer by at least an hour and a half, but it is what it is. The 21 Day 3 starters (most of them, anyway) are in their seats and cards will be in the air momentarily.