Croft Dismisses a Pair
Robert Hwang opened the pot (and a can of worms) with a raise to 19,000. In the small blind, Jeff Pollard three-bet all in for 73,000 total, but the action wasn't over yet. From the big, chip leader Charles Croft reraised all in himself, easily covering the table and the two players involved. When it came back to Hwang, he called all in for about 180,000 total! With a serious pot up for grabs and two players at risk, the cards were shown up:
Hwang:
Pollard:
Croft:
There was an ace on the flop, but it was by no means good news for Hwang. The dealer rolled out to give Croft his set and leave both opponents drawing dead to runner-runner. The turn ended any potential drama as the chip leader locked up the pot and the double knockout with the river still pending. Pollard goes out with the lower ranking due to his shorter stack, but he and Hwang are following each other to the cashier in 23rd and 22nd places, respectively.
With that pot, Croft has become the first player to crest the big milestone, working his stack all the way up to 1.12 million. That puts him about a half-million chips above what will be the average chip stack heading into the final table tomorrow.