The pro making the most noise at his table isn’t Dewey Tomko (and that’s not to say he’s doing badly) but Alex Jacob. On a hand typical of his day so far, Jacob called a raise before the flop made by an obscure amateur. Amateur bet the K52 flop. Jacob called. The turn was a blank, the 8. Afraid to fire another bullet, amateur checked. Jacob read it correctly as weakness and not a trap. He fired three yellow chips at the pot. Amateur attempted to stare him down, but Jacob’s eyes were hidden in the shadow of his droopy Afro. Amateur mucked his cards with a sigh. One more example of a pro taking a pot away from someone showing weakness. 

That was hardly the most exciting hand in that corner of the room. Several tables over, amateur Matt Shepski opened for a raise to $600. Amateur John Liss reraised to $2,100. Shepski called. The flop came AK9. Shepski checked. Liss bet $4,000. Shepski grabbed his chip stacks and flung them sloppily into the pot. Liss quickly called, and asked Shepski, “Do you have aces?” He asked because it was the only hand that could beat his. He had kings, which thoroughly dominated Shepski’s A-K. The turn was a blank, but the river was an ace. Shepski had caught a two-outer to make a bigger full house on the river. And John Liss’s day, the day he had dreamed of for so long, was done. “What am I going to do?” Shepski asked. “Fold that hand? Top two. No way.”
 

 Two tables down the line Devilfish Uliot was trying to take a hand away from an amateur the way Jacob had except Uliot didn’t have position on his opponent. The flop was 543, what looked like a classic Devilfish flop. He checked and called a guy who had what looked like a freshly shaved head that once held corn rows. Shaved Corn Rows fired again on the turn, which convinced Devilfish to give up chasing, but not without a snarl. “Did you raise thin again?” Meaning preflop, I guess. And he might not have even said that. Devilfish is hard to understand.

And then there was Dr. Pauley’s favorite player, Liz Lieu, sitting behind a tall, straight, and entirely phallic tower of chips. She was flinging around chips and betting big, using her position to take pots away from amateurs. As nice-looking as she is, none of the railbirds were looking at her. They were too busy gawking at Jeff Madsen. Madsen was playing in a jester costume (he lost a prop bet to Gavin Smith and Joe Sebok), and no one at his table was laughing, especially not the guy he won a big pot off of with 102. Madsen made trip tens to push his chip count above average.

Time to go check out another quarter acre inside the poker room….

PokerWire blogger Thomas Wahlroos did not make it through the day in the $10K PLO, which resumes play in a couple hours.  But, Eric Froehlich did make it to day two, with 125k in chips.  Also in the top twenty are Full Tilt Poker's Marco Traniello, Andy Bloch, Joe Beevers, and Robert Mizrachi.  Robert has 204k, which puts him in the top 10. Doyle Brunson will also be vying for his 11th bracelet when he returns to play.

With all the action today, it would be easy to miss everyone's favorite tall, blonde, and goofy-Canadian-ex-pro-hockey-player-turned-WSOP-machine Greg FBT Mueller will be playing at his second final table of this series.  He made a nice charge late yesterday to make the $1,500 No-Limit final table with just over 1m chips. I'm thinking about doing a running commentary on the final table, critiquing every hand FBT plays. 

Starting over...

Someone forgot to inform Ciarin O'Leary and Paul Evans to laydown and quit.  The two came to the final table sixth and second in chips respectively.  Fortunately for both of them, they kept battling and chipping away until they were 3-handed with Jacob.  At which point, O'Leary proceeded to bust Jacob out in third place giving him a huge chip lead over Evans as heads-up play began.  Jacob earned just over $282k for his efforts.

With a big chip lead, O'Leary kept the pressure on and was able to finish Evans off pretty quickly to earn his first WSOP bracelet.  He also received the first prize check of $727k and change. 

Paul Evans finished second and walked away with $450k.   Not too shabby considering he turned $1500 into that amount in 72 hours, try scoring that type of rate of return in the investment markets.

-LA Mike for Pokerwire.com