Heater Gives Friedberg The Chip Lead
by Court on 11.09.08, 4:52 pm
The last four hands of the second level of the day were full of action. For Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg it was a mad rush of collecting chips at his table, while the other tables saw the eliminations of Gavin Smith and Phil Ivey, dropping the field to only 20 remaining players as the time ran out on the 5k / 10k with a 1,500 chip ante level.
The largest pot for Friedberg (left) was the first of his streak. Yesterday Jon was all in with pocket kings against pocket aces and ended up making quad kings to win the pot, double up and stay alive in the tournament. Today it was Jon with the aces. He had raised to 29k preflop and Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little called. Ron Kirsh then raised to 149k and Friedberg moved in over the top for a total of 757k. Little folded what he later said was tens and Kirsh agonized before finally calling with pocket kings.
The flop came T
42
A
K with Friedberg hitting a set on the turn to close out any chance Ron had of winning the pot. Jon, happy that fate didn’t come back to get him for him kings versus aces win yesterday, raked in the huge pot and Kirsh was left with one of the shorter stacks in the room. The next hand out Jon was involved, and after a bet on the turn ran his opponent off Friedberg showed pocket aces, making it back to back hands that he picked up bullets. The very next hand Jon was again in and raising and after pushing everyone out he showed pocket jacks. The last hand of the level at Friedberg’s table the action folded to him in the small blind and he completed. Both players checked all the way down to the river and Jon showed pocket deuces to take the small pot.
Four hands, four pocket pairs, aces twice and Friedberg won them all with the massive double up to kick it off and push him to over 1.5 million chips. Friedberg was still in the midst of stacking and arranging his chips during the break, but his more than 1.6 million chips give him a solid chip lead going into the third level of the day.
Late level two eliminations included Gavin Smith who lost with pocket jacks against the AK of Henry Doiban and Phil Ivey (right) who was all in with A6 against K9 but was eliminated when Alex Bolotin flopped a pair of nines. Gavin takes 22nd spot while Ivey gets 21st. Gavin gets the $25,197 payout, while Ivey makes it one jump up to $27,135.
Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul continues his impressive comeback and is still hanging in with over 300k after starting the day with less than 100k in chips.
