Just a few minutes after the elimination of Team Australia (in the form of David Saab) from Outer Table 3, Mike Matusow of Team USA and Mel Judah of Team Australia went to war at Outer Table 2. The two were all in pre-flop, with Matusow tabling against Judah's connected cards, . Matusow flopped a set of kings and dodged Judah's straight outs on the turn and river to eliminate Team Australia from a second table.
Team Australia is down to 3 players. Each other team still has 5.
At Outer Table 2, Robert Mizrachi was check-raised on the river by one of the world's premier Omaha players, Mike Matusow for Team USA. Team Israel captain Eli Elezra came to the table and looked at Mizrachi's hand. Mizrachi then stood up, and he and Elezra could be seen whispering to each other. Whatever was said prompted Mizrachi to muck his hand.
Across the set, at Outer Table 3, the players took a 7-way raised flop. David Saab, for Team Australia, was the first player to move at the pot. The player to Saab's immediate left, David Chiu of Team China, raised, folding all other players.
Saab called to the turn, then pushed all in. Chiu quickly called the shove, which brought all of Team China running to the table. Both players had the same two pair on the turn, but Chiu, who had Saab covered, was on a freeroll to a straight or a flush with a river 8, 9 or spade. The river fell ace of spades, eliminating Team Australia from contention on Outer Table 3.
We're having difficulty keeping up with the substitutions. Plenty of seats have turned over at the outer tables. Team Australia seems to have rotated players at three tables, with Mel Judah taking Tony G's seat, Tony G taking David Saab's seat, and David Saab taking Steve Topakas' seat.
Team England has made several subtitutions as well. Other players who had been subtituted out at the beginning of the PLO round -- players like Maria Ho for Team China and Jen Harman for Team USA -- are milling around the rail, craning their necks to catch the action.
The current chip leader at the captains' table is Eli Elezra. "Right now," appended Johnny Chan.
Simultaneously, we had two players all in during the PLO round -- and both were from Team Australia. David Saab, with no voice, shoved against Robert Mizrachi on a board of . Mizrachi eventually folded.
One table away, Tony G made a move against Kido Pham. Tony G had top set; Pham called with a huge wrap-and-flush draw combo with one card to come. Team Vietnam crowded around for the river and celebrated jubilantly when it came as one of Pham's outs. Losing that pot knocked the G all the way down to 2,000 chips and gave Pham a huge double-up.
"It's the first time I've seen Tony G this quiet in a long time," quipped Robert Williamson III.
Cards are back in the air. At the captains table, Doyle Brunson and Ben Roberts played a huge pot, with Roberts' making a tough river call for the win.
"Doyle, are you trying to commit suicide by getting in a PLO pot with Ben Roberts?" Mike Matusow shouted from the rail. "You know you're never going to win against him."
The feature table of this event (the table at which all of the team captains are playing) is being streamed on the Internet on a 30-minute delay. You can watch the action -- with hole cards! -- on this stream.
The game switched just now to Pot-Limit Omaha. To announce the switch, a woman in a "sexy referee" outfit waltzed through the tournament area with a dry erase board marked PLO, with the new limits. Substitutions then commenced, with several teams switching in a PLO specialist.
Immediately afterwards the whole tournament went on a break. Teams are huddling up now at various points on the tournament floor.
We've already had our first substitution of the day and we just started. Kenny Tran got up from his table and walked over to team mate Tim Phan and said, "Man, you take over. I can't play limit. It's too slow."
Tran now sits on the sidelines alongside David Benyamine from Team Israel watching the action.