Tony Romanelli has run up a six-figure stack in the first dozen levels of Event 13: $300 Deeper-Stack NLHE. Instead of focusing on his quest to win a couple thousand dollars, Romanelli is more focused on sending a shoutout to his lovely wife.
"Can you tell me wife Rhonda I said hi?" he asked our reporter. "Oh, and that I've nearly tripled my stack."
The floor was called over to a table near the PokeNews Live Reporting team and players are standing, voices raised, fingers pointing. We get over there to see what the controversy is.
One player was all in for slightly over 30,000 in chips on a ten-high flop and had called the floor because he believed his opponent had made a forward motion indicating a call.
"He was standing and moved his chips past the betting line. Go to the camera, you'll see."
His opponent insisted he did no such thing. "I was just holding them deciding what to do."
A couple players at the table said that he had pump faked, moving his hands back and forth, as if to try and get a read on the player via his motion. Tab Duchateau eventually ruled that it would be a call much to the disappointment of the pump faker.
He turned over for top pair and was behind the short stack's .
"One time," said our pump faker, obviously wanting to place a bad beat. It wouldn't happen though and he glared at his opponent. "I would never do that to you. Never!"
Things have settled down now but let that be a lesson for all of you poker players out there - there's no pump faking in poker.
There was a raise to 1,200 in late position, a second player called near the button, Attilio Bitondo called out of the small blind, and a player defended his big blind. All four players checked on a flop of , and the turn was the .
Bitondo led out for 4,200, only the original raiser called, and the completed the board. Both players checked.
Bitondo showed for a pair of eights, and his opponent flashed before sending his cards into the muck.
Earlier today we talked about a hand where John Hall tripled up with quad fives to bring his stack to 67,400. Hall is continuing to accumulate and looks to be the early chip leader with 170,000 which is almost five times the starting stack.
Tournament Director Tab Duchateau has told us that there were 242 entrants for the tournament today. As soon as we have the prize pool and payout information available, we'll post it here.