The expression on Giuseppe Niro’s face says it all. He’s a happy camper, and with good reason!

As the registration period draws to a close, Giuseppe had the good fortune to bust one of his competitors, further increasing he stack. But at the point when both he and his opponent initially flipped their cards after the all in, the result was far from assured – despite the fact that Giuseppe’s Kings dominated his opponent’s Jack Queen off-suit.

When we joined the action, Giuseppe and Nadir Lalji were just squaring up to each other preflop. Nadir limped in for 1000, and Giuseppe re-raised him 2200 on the button. Nadir called, and they saw the flop.

Flop:

Nadir was utg and checked, and Giuseppe raised to 3200. After a short pause Nadir re-raised all in with a relatively short stack, for approximately 30,000. Giuseppe called, showing his pocket kings.

Giuseppe:

Nadir:

Giuseppe was comfortably in control for all of two seconds, until the turn was dealt a queen, giving Nadir two pairs. Luckily for Giuseppe, the river was a very friendly 10, giving him a higher two pairs and squeezing Nadir out of the tournament just under the wire.

Level 10 is now underway, and registration is set to close upon the completion of this level, at 11:35pm. Play seems to have loosened up since the last break, and a slew of recent eliminations has brought the remaining field down below 100 players.

Photographs from level 9:

The second break of the night has just passed us in the WPT500 Day 1B, and Stefano Parise is our current chip leader, sitting on a stack north of 140,000. He was left with under 8,000 chips prior to the first break, but has managed to pummel his way to the top of the leaderboard in just a few short levels. Below are the top counts heading into level 9:

After four hours of play we have arrived midway through level 8, with the blinds sitting at 300 / 600. There have been a total of 167 entries so far (including 25 re-entries) there is still time to join the action, which closes at 11:30 pm.

The latest action was at Table 82, which saw the elimination of Francois Roy at the hands of Mike Lafable. When we joined the play betting had already begun, and it would cost 1300 to see the flop. Three players were interested.

Flop:

The player utg in seat 2 (Francois Roy) shoved all in. The player in seat 6 folded, and Mike Lafable in seat 8 decided he would risk it, calling the all in with his larger stack. Both players flipped over their hole cards.

Francois:

Mike:

Francois had middle pair and a gut-shot straight draw, but unfortunately Mike had top pair and the same gut-shot straight draw. The final two cards were dealt , with Mike cleaning up the chips with a pair of 9s.

Players from Day 1B of the WPT500 are nearing the half-way mark of the flight as level 8 is coming to a close. There is a short break scheduled following the completion of this level, during which we will compile our new leaderboard.

Photographs from levels 6-7:

Although the WPT500 Day 1B has only been running for a little more than three hours, table 79 has witnessed more busts than any other so far tonight. Of the 26 busts that have occurred, 4 happened at table 79. An even more interesting fact? All the players that busted were sitting in the same seat!

Carlo Nini (seat 2) took out the table 79’s latest victim, Jose De La Cruz (seat 1) in the following manner:

With the average chip stack at 37,000 and the blinds at 200/400, Jose opened the action with a raise to 1000. There were three calls.

Flop:

Jose raised to 1000, and we re-raised by Carlo to 7700. The other two players at the table folded, but Jose decided to call. The turn came down a .

Jose was utg and checked, and Carlo raised to 7,000. Jose, looking at his stack and realizing he was more or less pot-committed, went all in. Carlo called him, showing a flush with his . Jose flipped over his Queen Ten with no clubs, and was drawing dead. Seat number 1 claimed another victim!

The question was, will the next player be able to turn the luck of seat 1 around? We didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

Fabio Luongo – brother of famed NHL goalie Roberto – sat down next, playing his first hand of the night. He ended up in a battle against Carlo as well, and threw caution to the win by going all in on his first hand!

When we joined the action, Fabio was holding two clubs, and needed a club on the river to beat Carlo’s three Queens. Instantly reversing the curse, he spiked a flush on the river, and doubled up. Fabio is now sitting on a comfortable 60,000 in chips after one hand of play, and there is plenty more action to come.