For much of this tournament Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers has been up and down, saying himself after the end of day 4 that he would like to be able to see an accurate graph of the fluctuations in his chip stack.  For now he has found a peak, sitting on the chip lead and a hefty 5.75 million chips after not long ago losing a coinflip that had relegated Sowers to the shortest stack left in the tournament.  Pat Walsh is no longer one of the remaining, falling in 5th place to Binh Nguyen.

Sowers big double up came in a hand where he opened for 250k and Nguyen raised to 750k.  Sowers then moved all in for 2.8 million and Nguyen called.  Sowers had the KQ and had to be somewhat relieved to see he was in a flip against the 77 of Nguyen.  The board came Q535T and Sowers was able to win the hand and double up to his highest point of the tournament and the chip lead with 5.75 million.

Nguyen was able to get a lot of the lost chips back the next hand though, when his AJ held up against the A2 of Pat Walsh to eliminate Walsh (left) in 5th place for $310,694.  After Walsh was eliminated about 10 more hands were played before the final four were sent on a short break.  In that time the blinds also went up from 50k / 100k to 60k / 120k with the ante jumping up to 20k.

Announced chip counts on the break were as follows:
Binh Nguyen  -  5,445,000
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers  -  5,190,000
Andrew Cimpan  -  2,165,000
Chris Karagulleyan  -  1,100,000

• February 27, 2009 -- Sowers Soured, Out 3rd
• February 27, 2009 -- Karagulleyan Out 4th, Sowers Loses Flip
• February 26, 2009 -- Ferguson Out 6th, Sowers Down and Back Up
• February 26, 2009 -- Sowers Doubles Through Ferguson