Thomas Lefort was all in from the big blind for his remaining 44,700, as was the player in the hijack, for his last 18,000. Joseph Cheong was on the button and called, having both players covered.
The hijack tabled , Lefort showed , and Cheong revealed .
The flop came , giving Cheong a pair of kings and some outs to eliminate both of his opponents. The turn was the , and the river was the . Lefort took down the pot to double through Cheong and eliminate the hijack. Meanwhile Cheong was chopped down to just a few big blinds.
Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier was the short stack on the table and he pushed his last 18,000 chips in the middle from middle position. The action was folded around to the big blind who called with , but was slightly behind Elky's .
The flop came and Elky's tournament was looking all but over. The turn was the giving him some hope and when the hit the river, Elky had made a flush to stay alive. He still has a long way to go if he hopes to find a bag at the end of the day, but leave it to the French pro to find a way.
With about 20,000 in the pot, on a board reading , a player in middle position led out for 10,000. Jeremy Ausmus was on the button and thought for a moment before deciding to call.
The river was the , and the middle-position player checked with about 10,000 behind. Ausmus paused and moved all in, having his opponent covered by a decent amount of chips. His opponent went into the tank, and even started to slide his stack forward but pulled his chips back. Ausmus showed no reaction, and eventually his opponent called.
Ausmus tabled for a set of tens, and his opponent showed for a pair of tens, sending him to the rail.
After the player was eliminated, another player at the table said, "That was a hero call."
Walking by Scott Skriba's table, it was hard not to notice the mound of chips he was stacking. His cards were still face up and the board was still laid out on the table that read . The dealer was shipping him another player's chip stack that looked to be around 100,000 chips. Skriba's hand was for the nut flush and his opponent quickly flashed pocket aces before standing up to be taken to the cash cage.
Another player at the table sarcastically said, "He's running bad today, real bad."
Skriba appears the only player who has accumulated over 400,000 chips in the room thus far as he looks to continue his hot streak throughout the day.
Players are shuffling towards the payout desk at a very fast rate.
More familiar faces to hit the rail for a min-cash include Thi Nguyen, Kathy Liebert, Ryan Riess, Tristan Wade, Scott Montgomery, Tyler Patterson, Noah Vaillancourt, Ben Yu, Matt Berkey, DJ MacKinnon, Mukul Pahuja, Nick Rampone, Jake Balsiger and Michael Noori.
Fresh off winning his third WSOP bracelet, David Pham came into the day with a smaller stack but that hasn't deterred him from feeling as confident as ever. Early in the day, Pham was all in for just 9,700 and was able to get a double-up with when he spiked a nine on the flop against his opponent.
After taking another peek at his table, Pham has now spun up his stack to nearly 100,000 in just two levels. It's never easy to slay "The Dragon," and Pham is proving that once again.