In Level 5 with blinds of 400/800 and an ante of 100, "FrankyFunk" raised to 2,000 from the cutoff, "Wyeth" three-bet to 6,800 from the button and Daniel "centrfielder23" Lupo four-bet to 19,800 from the big blind.
Action was back on "FrankyFunk" who mucked their hand and "Wyeth" jammed their 53,087 stack into the middle. Lupo called and the two players revealed their hands.
"Wyeth":
Daniel "centrfielder23" Lupo:
Lupo was crushed and nothing changed after the runout as "Wyeth" collected their double-up.
Play is in Level 6 with blinds of 500/1,000 and an ante of 125 and the number of entries has climbed to 47. Forty-one players remain across seven tables, "maniacalmonk" atop the counts.
In Level 7 with blinds of 600/1,200 and an ante of 150, Ryan “TheSims” Hohner raised to 2,400 from the cutoff, Derek "pompii" Sudell three-bet to 7,880 from the button and Daniel “leinad” Buzgon four-bet all in for 39,603 from the big blind.
Action was back on Hohner who quickly mucked his hand while Sudell put in the chips and the two players tabled their hands.
Daniel “leinad” Buzgon:
Derek "pompii" Sudell:
Buzgon was ahead with his made hand until the flop appeared pairing Sudell's king.
The turn was no help to Buzgon, nor was the river and he re-entered the tournament.
In Level 8 with blinds of 800/1,600 and an ante of 200, Eric “alwaysliquid” Vanauken opened for 2,400 from the hijack and "redraider" three-bet jammed for 25,548.
Action folded around to Yong "IReadYrSoul" Kwon who isolated after coming over the top for 37,324 from the big blind.
"redraider":
Yong "IReadYrSoul" Kwon:
"redraider" had Kwon dominated and didn't have a sweat as the board ran out a clean securing their double-up.
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Play is midway through Level 9 with blinds of 1,000/2,000/250 and the guaranteed prize pool of $25,000 has already been surpassed as 62 entries have now been recorded with 42 players currently in contention.
The top stacks in the tournament have been provided below.
One player who has been doing quite well on the network is bracelet winner Daniel “centrfieldr23” Lupo, 37, of West Milford, New Jersey. You might recall that last summer, Lupo topped a 1,767-entry field to win the WSOP.com Online $500 NLH Turbo Deepstack for $145,274 and a gold bracelet. Earlier this year, he added a ring to his résumé by taking down the WSOP.com Online Circuit Event #3: $320 NLH 6-Max for $32,595 and a month later won the WSOP.com $100,000 GTD Sunday for $50,715.
PokerNews caught up with Lupo, who went to NJIT for Architecture and baseball, to ask him about poker, which he squeezes in between working for an Architecture firm in Bridgewater specializing in single-family residential and smaller commercial projects and his family, which includes three kids ages 2-5 and his supportive wife Laura.
Q&A with Daniel “centrfieldr23” Lupo
PokerNews: When and how did you learn to play poker?
Lupo: I started playing/learning in college during the Rounders and Moneymaker boom with a bunch of the baseball guys. Within a year I found myself hosting games at college, at home on breaks and basically anywhere I could find or make a game. I didn’t play much online early on, regrettably.
What sort of poker do you play these days?
Mostly online MTTs playing like three sessions per week on average with buy-ins typically from $50 to $1k with the occasional $2-$3k buy in for a big event. I average around 500-600 MTTs a month despite not playing full time, I tend to put in a lot of volume when I’m on. The games are mostly NLH and some PLO MTTs, but love when StarsNJ runs a series as they run a fun 8-Game MTT with a bunch of other mixed variants.
What’s it like to play poker while raising young children?
It’s been a constant evolution. I could probably write a book about all the highs and lows and life adjustments I’ve had or chose to make. It gives me a lot of inspiration to succeed while also adding some weight to my losses as it's like 'not only was I way from my kids for all of Sunday afternoon but I lost (insert obnoxious Sunday schedule cost here)'.
Daniel Lupo and his family
What are some of your poker goals?
Try and win everything I play. Actually, my biggest current goal is trying to optimize my MTT game selection. Since quarantine began the schedules have been exploding site to site and while it's been great, with lots of new players and lots of live players playing online it has also drastically increased my average buy-ins and session costs as well as the field size which further increases variance.
I'm trying to optimize the balance of table quantity and expected value vs individual session costs and the variance that comes with it. Having an average buy-in of $250 adds up pretty quickly when it's spread across 60+ entries on a Sunday. My biggest ongoing and long-term goal is to win enough to help my family live comfortably.
How did it feel to take down the partypoker US Network Phased Main Event last month?
I was pretty stoked about the partypoker US win. I love their structure and it was a very tough field when we were deep; I was fortunate to run pretty well and the be able to leverage my chip stack at the final table. I had made a bunch of top 18 runs in their series Main Events but couldn't crack a solid finish lately so this felt a little extra special.
In Level 10 with blinds of 1,200/2,400 and an ante of 300, Dan “mj23style” Sewing open-jammed for 39,490 from under the gun, "Edsebo" came over the top for 89,550 from the button and Sridhar “sri100k” Sangannagari called from the big blind.
"Edsebo":
Dan “mj23style” Sewing:
Sridhar “sri100k” Sangannagari:
"Edsebo" was ahead with their made hand and nothing changed after the flop appeared.
The was a safe card for "Edsebo" and the secured their double-up along with sewing's bounty.
On the last hand of Level 10 (1,200/2,400/300), there was three-way all in action on a board showing, Event #5 Champ Vinny “brownmagic” Pahuja had both his opponent's covered and all three players had their hands revealed.
runout as "Wyeth" collected their double-up.
flop appeared pairing Sudell's king. 
turn was no help to Buzgon, nor was the 
river and he re-entered the tournament.
securing their double-up.
flop appeared. 
secured their double-up along with sewing's bounty.
appeared on the river giving Pahuja the nuts while scoring a the double elimination.