Every once in a while at the tables both players see a card on the river and are privately overjoyed. Each player thinks they’ve just struck gold, but one is always wrong. That was the case just now on table 81, in a battle between Michael Wang and Andrew Noce.

We joined this table late in the action, with the board showing the following cards:

The pot had approximately 35K chips in it, and Andrew was utg. With the bb at 1K, he bet 16K. Michael studied the board for a solid minute, and raised all in. Andrew called.

Andrew:

Michael:

So while Andrew had an open-ended straight draw since the turn, the 8 on the river was a poison pill, giving him trip 8s. Unfortunately for Andrew, the river card made Michael’s gut-shot straight, giving him the nuts. Michael doubled up his (approximately) 90K chips, leaving Andrew with precious little to work with for the rest of the night.

Photographs from level 9:

After 8 full levels of play the players took their second break. The group of chip leaders has changed somewhat, with Pascal Monarque maintaining his lead. The following players are also at the top of the leaderboard going into the final half of tonight’s flight.

Arun Kumar Singh opened to 1,300 from the cutoff once action folded around to him, and he was met with a 3-bet to 5,500 from Andre Noce in the small blind. He made the call and the two went heads-up to the flop.

Both players checked on the flop, and Andre fired 11,000 once the dealer pealed a on the turn. Arun called the bet, and a was dealt on the river. After a quick pause, Andre announced he was all-in, and without hesitation Arun threw in some calling chips and tabled for a full house.

Andre flipped over for a lower full-house, and then cut out 56,400 chips to pay his opponent. Andre’s once chip-leading stack was more than cut in half during this hand, bringing him back near the current average stack of 48.5K.

The players continue to grind away at Day 1D, presently at level 8. The average stack is near 50,000, with a total of 147 currently still sitting in their seats out of a total of 237 entries. With more than an hour left in the registration period, there is still plenty of time to come down and make a last minute appearance.

And while the two players featured in the photo may or may not make the cut at the end of the day, both of them have already won something: each other’s respect and friendship! So come to Playground and experience some of the fun at the felt at the WPT 500, you never know what you’ll find!

Midway through level 6, there is still plenty of hands to play.  The night is over however for Nghi van Tran, who just busted with an ill-timed bluff versus Michael Korovine at table 79.

Six players decided to limp in and see the flop after an initial bet from of 800 from Gieseppe Niro, who is back for a second try at Day 1 today.

Flop:

All six players checked the flop.

Turn:

Korovine was utg in seat 4, and he bet 3K. It was enough to send 4 players packing, not surprising considering the amount of limps and checks during the initial stages of the hand. Tran re-raised to 8K, however, which would turn out to be a fateful choice. He was called by Korovine.

River:

Korovine checked again utg.  Sensing this was his moment, Tran shoved all in. He was mistaken. Korovine called the all in, and Tran threw away his cards in disgust without even waiting to see what Korovine had, knowing instantly that his timing was off on the bluff.

Tran walked away from the table without even flipping his cards. The dealer was forced to flip his hand over for him, which was a nothing nothing 9-3 off suit. Korovine gladly flipped over his two pair (Kings and 7s), something he had had since the flop, officially ending Tran`s night.