Day 5 of the Main Event began at noon on July 10, with 522 players back at the tables. And the two players most closely associated in the public consciousness with the technical and psychological perfection of no-limit Hold'em were at the same table: Isaac Haxton and Stephen Chidwick. Both had 95 blinds. PokerGo decided to broadcast the table on its free YouTube channel .
Isaac Haxton raises to 45,000 from early position. Stephen Chidwick calls on the button with . Joey Padron calls from the BB with .
Flop Everyone is waiting.
Turn – . Padron leads 60,000. Haxton folds. Chidwick tries to put pressure on him with a raise of 200,000. Padron doesn't believe him – he calls.
River – It goes check-check and Joey takes it down.
Meanwhile, Greg Merson, in an effort to maximize the supposed advantage in the level of play, switches to a limping strategy.
From the cutoff he comes in with a call . Jocelyn Garde raises the button to 80,000 with . Chris Waugh calls in the BB with .
Merson explodes with a limp-raise to 315,000!
Both opponents throw away their cards in horror.
Players Championship finalist Esther Taylor limps from the small blind with a stack of around 70bb. . William Pengelly, with the same stack, checks to the BB with .
Flop . Taylor bets 30,000. Pengelly calls with queen-high.
Turn – . Taylor barrels to 65,000. Time to fold? Pengelly, however, is not ready to fold when he is older and defends his hand by raising to 200,000! No equity realization! Taylor is forced to fold her flush draw.
Shortly after this hand was broadcast and Pengelly gained a reputation as a brazen bluffer, another big pot was played at the same table.
Brian Arbaugh raises from the middle . Pengelly defends BB with .
Flop – . Pengelly checks, gets a continuation bet of 60,000, calls.
Turn – . Pengelly leads with a straight, not giving his opponent a simple check behind – 140,000. Arbaugh calls.
River – .
Pengelly bets 500,000.
Arbaugh thinks for a few minutes, then calmly passes the set. He probably didn't read the broadcast. A good lesson for those who are always ready to overextend themselves.
Alessandro Predaroli raises to 40,000 from the cutoff. Stephen Chidwick defends the big blind.
On the flop There is a continuation bet of 40,000. Chidwick calls.
Turn – . On the Briton's check, Predaroli increases the sizing to 100,000. And again Chidwick calls.
River – . Chidwick checks for the third time. His opponent moves all-in for about 300,000.
At Chidwick's , and he decides to pay, but he guesses wrong – at Predaroli .
Chidwick is down to 1,015,000. Literally can't win a single pot!
On the flop the experienced Frank Rusnak checks in the BB and Denis Strebkov makes a continuation bet of 40,000. Rusnak responds with an all-in of 245,000. Denis, after thinking for a moment, makes a call with . His opponent Frank's outs don't come, and Denis ends up with 2,540,000.
Greg Merson limps on the cutoff. Chris Waugh checks the BB with .
On the flop The lead is 25,000 and Merson calls.
Turn – . It looks like a normal card for a second barrel, since they've already started bluffing, and Vo bets 75,000. Merson calls, since the pot size isn't particularly scary thanks to the limp.
River – . Chris double-bluffs with A-high with a timid bet of 85,000. Merson quickly calls and takes another handful of chips from opponents who are not used to such a strategy.
Merson limps again – this time with from the middle. Chris Waugh, still trying to learn the ropes of limp poker, over-limps on the button with . Santiago Montes delivers in the small blind with . Dmitry Perfil'ev checks on BB.
Flop – – no one is happy, everyone is waiting.
Turn – . It's Merson's turn to act and he bets 75,000. Vo calls.
River – . Merson confidently gets 110,000. Vo clings to his jack, pays and loses on the kicker.
Alessandro Predaroli raises to 55,000 in the cutoff. Chidwick calls in the BB.
Flop . After Predaroli checks, he bets 50,000. Chidwick check-raises to 215,000. This is called.
Thorn – . Chidwick checks, his opponent checks back.
River – , the long flush hits. Chidwick block bets for 145,000. The opponent immediately opens this not very convincing line with a weak top pair. . He's right: Chidwick The Briton's misadventures continue, and his chips are running out.
Isaac Haxton, unlike his neighbor, played strictly for the first hours and won several pots, showing good hands. Now he raises 50,000 from the hijack with . Predaroli calls in the cutoff with , Fabrice Bigot on the button pays with . Chidwick on BB delivers with .
Flop . It's checked to Haxton, who bets one blind – 25,000. Predaroli folds. Fabrice Bigot and Chidwick call.
Thorn . Chidwick and Haxton check. Bigot, rightly believing he has the best hand, bets 160,000. Chidwick folds. Haxton... check-raises to 350,000!
Bigot is forced to break up with the couple, and the pot goes to the masked man.
Haxton raises to 60,000 from the middle. Chidwick on the button sees two fives again. He has only 375,000 left and moves all-in. Jeremy Kottler in the small blind is also quite short and decides to gamble for 335,000 with . Haxton calls with two kings.
The flop is a fighting one (not for Chidwick, of course, he's clearly got out of bed on the wrong side of the bed today) – . Turn is even more combative –a . River – a , and Haxton takes both opponents' chips.
By the way, Kottler started the day with the second stack, but lost almost everything with an unthinkable bluff when he went to knock out a full house with K-high.
Merson's caution is evident, not only in his limps, but also in his willingness to throw away, for example, a straight.
Santiago Montes raises 60,000 from the middle with . Merson defends BB with .
On the flop a small continuation bet of 45,000 is check-called.
Turn – A check is a check.
River – Merson bets 50,000 with a straight. Montes raises to 175,000.
And Merson, after thinking for a bit, confidently passes the cards!
Juan Carlos Vecino and Richard Buckingham flop a 500,000 4-bet pot and the board clearly favors the aggressor – . Vecino bets 225,000 in the cutoff.
Buckingham thinks for a few minutes on the high deck, then goes all-in for 2,000,000!
Vecino quickly throws away his cards and Buckingham shows with the words:
– Sorry, but I was absolutely sure that you had ace-king.
Among those eliminated before the big break, we note popular poker video bloggers Andrew Nimi and Brad Owen. Nimi was eliminated in 382nd place, Owen in 373rd. Both received $40,000.
Stacks of a number of players in the big break (the chip count is declared by PokerNews as full, but it does not include, for example, Haxton):
Michael Hawker (USA) – 6,090,000
Muhamet Perati (Italy) – 6,000,000
Brandon Eisen (USA) – 5,250,000
Brian Hastings (USA) – 3,700,000
Michael Mizrachi (USA) – 3,575,000
Will Kassouf (Great Britain) – 2,300,000
Nate Silver (USA) – 1,670,000
Leon Sturm (Germany) – 1,055,000
Viktor Blom (Sweden) – 325,000
Action in the hand involving Richard Buckingham and Denis Strebkov. There are already a million chips in the pot, the board is . Buckingham bets 400,000 from the small blind, Denis calls in position.
River – .
Buckingham makes a cautious bet of 600,000 – a little less than half of his opponent’s stack. Denis calls very quickly and sighs heavily when he sees his opponent’s cards – .
– King-queen? – Buckingham asks sympathetically. Denis turns over and throws them into the muck. A huge pot fails, and he's left with 800,000 – 20 blinds.
Safiya Umerova, who was left with a short stack, gets Q3o in first position and suddenly decides to play the “UTG is the new button” trick – she bets 180,000, leaving 15,000 behind.
The trick almost works, but Jonathan Azoulay in the small blind still talks himself into calling with a weak ace. The player in the BB, interestingly, throws down a stronger ace.
No help comes and Safiya leaves the tournament in 286th place, her prize is $52,500.
Michael Hawker goes into the break as the chip leader. When he returns, he plays two hands with Fedor Holz's student, PokerCode grinder and EPT winner Sebastian Schulze – and heads to the cashier for money that is several times smaller than the expectation he had when he left for lunch.
First hand: Schulze raises, gets two calls. Flop , everyone checks. Turn – . Schulze makes a small bet, Hawker calls, the third player folds.
River – . Schulze makes another small bet, and suddenly Hawker responds with a huge overbet – it's all-in! The call is 1,785,000.
Hawker understands everything from the speed with which the polite German called the all-in.
“You don’t have two aces, do you?” he asks sadly.
“Two aces,” confirms Schulze.
A shaken Hawker, who had two nines, leaves the table briefly.
A few hands later, Schulze raises to 85,000 from the cutoff. Hawker defends the small blind.
On the flop The American check-calls a bet of 90,000.
Turn – Hawker leads with 210,000. Schulze raises to 700,000. Hawker moves all-in almost instantly. Schulze, also instantly, calls.
"You don't have a flush, do you?" Hawker asks, showing the bottom straight. (and he came in with this hand from the small blind!).
Schulze opens silently .
Let's take a pity break from the end of this scene. When you feel shaken by a hand, don't rush to the table as soon as you're dealt the cards again. Take a walk, recover... Otherwise, things could get very awkward. With three and a half million, Hawker could have kept playing and playing, but instead he was eliminated in 296th place.
"Dude, what did you have for dinner?" a player in the next box asked Schulze.
“Chicken teriyaki,” the German answered seriously.
After winning this hand, he got a stack of 8,780,000 and went like a tank, without meeting much resistance. In less than 10 minutes he will have more than 10 million, and at the end of the day – almost 13...
The legendary Isildur resteals Tony Gregg's 80,000 raise by going all-in for 905,000 with a pair of eights. Gregg calls with AQo. An ace comes. Isildur bids farewell to the table with dignity and goes to the cashier. He maneuvered his shortstack for a long time, but never got a full spin.
Following him, famous statistician Nate Silver is eliminated.
Silver raises from the button to the big blind Daniele Primerano. On the flop and thorns Silver fires two barrels. Primerano calls, building the pot to 1,300,000.
River – . Primerano checks a third time and Silver moves all-in for 1,090,000. Primerano thinks for a few minutes and calls with top pair. . Silver flips over a missed combo draw .
265th place, $52,500.
Among those eliminated at the 23rd level of blinds is Denis Strebkov. 261st place.
Maxim Panyak leaves the tournament on the 24th place. 239th place. Both have the same prizes as Silver.
Harold Lam, who started the day as the chip leader, bets 115,000 on the flop . Alan Tenorio check-raises to 355,000 in the BB. Lam calls to a million. Tenorio moves all-in and Lam calls for his last 1,800,000.
Lam has a set of tens. Tenorio has a street.
Two blanks and another former chip leader loses all hope.
Creative Michael Mizrachi continues to perform random actions, infecting his table neighbors with enthusiasm.
On the board There's 540,000 in the pot, Mizrachi bets 175,000 from the hijack .
Sweden's Munir Taijou responds with a min-raise to 350,000 from the button with .
Test raise for raise-fold? Mizrachi 3-bet to 575,000.
No, for value! Munir ends the micro poker session all-in for 2,325,000.
Mizrachi plays Hollywood for a few minutes, then throws his cards into the fold.
202 players advance to Day 6. Play continues at 30k/60k with a 60k BB ante.
Chip Counts at the End of Day 5
Leaders:
- Sebastian Schulze (Germany) – 12,745,000
- Chad Power (USA) – 9,540,000
- Braxton Dunway (USA) – 8,600,000
- Sergio Veloso (Portugal) – 8,200,000
- Richard Buckingham (USA) – 7,625,000
- Albert Calderon (USA) – 7,365,000
- Muhamet Perati (Italy) – 7,010,000
- Will Kassouf (UK) – 6,900,000
- Pedro Padilha (Brazil) – 6,835,000
- Michael Garner (USA) – 6,505,000
Stars:
- Michael Mizrachi – 4,025,000
- Greg Merson – 2,960,000
- Tony Gregg – 2,950,000
- Isaac Haxton – 2,580,000
- Leon Sturm – 2,300,000
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