The short break seems to have refocussed Jim Collopy after that nasty cooler a few minutes back, and he's come back to the table fighting.
Just now he raised from the button and Gus Hansen called to see a flop. Hansen checked, and Collopy took it down with a continuation bet. Just a small pot, but they all count when you're at a 2:1 chip disadvantage.
Collopy may be the shorter stack now, but he has proved over the course of this tournament that he is a master of recovery - if you recall, he came back from extreme short stackage in his semi-final match against Ram Vaswani, and then again in Round 2 of the final. The blinds are still pretty small as well, and this match could very definitely go either way.
There is only one word for this hand - as the online kids say, "SICK".
Gus Hansen limped in on the button - no change there - and Jim Collopy raised out of the big blind - no change there either.
The flop came down and Collopy bet out 78,000. Hansen called, and they saw a turn.
Turn:
This time Collopy checked. Hansen thought about it for a while before betting 128,000. Collopy just smooth called. Intriguing.
River:
Collopy checked again, and the action was on Hansen. He thought about it for a while - and thought - and thought some more - and then drank a whole bottle of water - and thought about it again - and then announced all in.
An instacall from Collopy, followed by a sound like he'd been punched in the stomach.
Collopy: for trips
Hansen: for a rivered full house
Hansen went from the short stack to the big chip leader in one fell swoop. The current counts are Hansen 2.54 million, Collopy 1.3 million.
Jim Collopy raised to 50,000 from the button and Gus Hansen called to see a flop where both players checked. The turn came and Hansen led for 62,000. Collopy called and both players checked the river. Hansen tabled and took the pot as Collopy mucked.
Gus Hansen just took a very tricky line pre-flop but it didn't work out too well for him. He limp re-raised Jim Collopy's 76,000 raise up to 181,000. Collopy thought through his options before raising again to over a million. We don't have an exact count on the raise amount as Hansen threw his cards into the muck and the pot was pushed the other way.
This heads-up round is being played out way more aggressively that the first two rounds with a lot more pre-flop aggression and a lot less small-ball poker.
Gus Hansen limped in on the button and Jim Collopy checked his option to see a flop; Collopy checked again, and then called a 40,000 bet from Hansen.
In fact, the action went check-bet-call down the turn and river too - Collopy check-calling 69,000 on the turn and another 168,000 on the river, at which point Hansen revealed for flopped trips. We saw the return of the "muckle" - the simultaneous muck and chuckle - as Collopy couldn't beat it, and Hansen's stack moved back up to 1.4 million.
The last three hands have all ended pre-flop with raises or re-raises taking them down. Twice Gus Hansen limped only to fold to a Jim Collopy BB raise. The other hand Collopy raised but folded to a Hansen three-bet.
We're really seeing these players mix it up today - and although the presence of the TV cameras means that we can't get in there to hear what our heads-up-onauts are talking about, we're actually pretty excited that we might get to see the hole cards when they show this on TV.
Jim Collopy opened for 40,000, as is his wont - and this time we just saw a flat-call from Gus Hansen. Hansen checked the flop before again flat-calling a 53,000 bet from Collopy. Hansen tanked up for a while on the turn but checked, and this time Collopy checked behind; they both checked the river too, and it went to showdown.
Hansen flipped first the , before then turning over the rather more lacklustre - but poor though the kicker may have been, Collopy didn;t have anything that could beat it, and Hansen moved up to around 1.1 million.