Donald Bull, looking as serious as he can in the photo below, just took down a healthy pot. We joined the hand late, but were able to catch his 5,000 bet on the river, as he faced off heads up against Richard Book.

The board was showing . With about 15,000 already in the pot, this hand could help increase Donald’s stack to near double what he started with. And that he did! After Richard called the 5,000 Donald flipped his pocket sixes ( ), which was enough to take the pot and pose like a pro.

As we near the end of level 3 for this evening’s WPTDeepStacks Day 1D event number of players continues to steadily increase, as more and more join us for a shot at the $1,000,000 prize pool.

We’re now at 162 entries for the night, up about 70 from an hour ago. Some of the newly arrived players are shown below.

As we enter level 3, play is starting to heat up, albeit slowly. Over at table 101 we witnessed a battle already underway, this time between Michael Wang and Srinivas Gottiparthi, two poker players who have been getting deep in various WPT events all week here at Playground.

When we arrived there was 5,000 in the pot, with the flop showing . The table checked around, and a was dealt on the flop.

Michael was utg, raising 3,000. Srinivas called, and a was dealt on the river.

Again Michael led out, this time for 5,000. Although he took a couple of minutes to decide, Srinivas decided to make the call. Michael flipped over his and raked in the chips. Apparently his pair of Queens was enough.

Boyd Rose wasn’t under the gun in the last hand at table 97, but led the action at every turn, eventually taking down the pot.

Action began preflop with his raise of 700. There were three callers: Tam Ho, Jonathan Blaha and Michel Cronier.  One of his opponents, Michel Cronier, came in 4th a couple of months ago here at Playground in the WSOP-C $300 + $30 event, taking down a significant prize.

Flop:

Michel checked utg and Boyd raised to 1,100. Tam folded, but Jonathan and Michel called.

Turn:

Michel checked again, and this time Boyd raised to 1,600. Again, Jonathan and Michel called.

River:

For the third time, Michel checked utg. This time Boyd raised to 2,700., and it was finally too much for Jonathan, who folded. Michel was game, however, calling Boyd’s third raise of the hand. Boyd flipped over his and collected the nearly 14,000 chips in the pot. His two pair was too much for Michel, who mucked his cards.

With level 1 already underway we have almost reached 100 entries in this evening’s WPTDeepStacks Day 1D event already. Anyone who survives the twelve 40-minute levels will have a chance to return on Day 2, occurring tomorrow, Saturday November 3 at 3pm, for a chance to win part of the $1,000,000 prize pool.

See below for some photos of the competitors who have already started playing.

Day 1D of the $1,500 + $150 WPTDeepStacks event just kicked off a few minutes here ago at Playground Poker Club. This is the fourth of five WPTDeepStacks flights this week. In addition to today’s action there will be a Turbo Day 1E tomorrow at 10:00am, Saturday November 3rd.

Players will start the evening with 30,000 tournament chips and the WPTDeepStacks competitors will play through twelve levels, 40 minutes each. There will be breaks following every 3rd level on each Day 1, but no dinner break in  this evening’s flight.

Because this is a multiple re-entry event players will be permitted one entry and one re-entry. Late registration will be available until the beginning of level 10, or at approximately 12:30am.

Good luck to everyone playing – the cards are now in the air!