He started off second in chips, but Brian Rast is the first player out of this Omaha final table leaving us with eight remaining players, Johnny Chan has taken over the chip lead and now is the first player to reach the $2,000,000 mark.

Rast Roasted

Rast raised from the button and Johnny Chan called from the big blind, limper Daniel Negreanu folded. J 4 3. Chan checked, Rast bet close to the pot, and 'The Orient Express' set him all-in, Rast made the call with J T 7 6 for top pair with a flush draw and a gutshot, Chan calling with A 7 7 9 for the nut flush draw.

The Q turn helped neither player but Chan caught the A on the river and his one solitary pair of aces were good enough to scoop. Rast went out 9th winning around $84,863. Daniel Negreanu who spent around $85,000 on the comp, exclaimed, "I'm officially unstuck!"

$15k profit minimum now. Wiiiiiiiiiii.

Action Flops But Not Pots

So far the final is following a consistent line, two or more players to a pot, usually raised. But then, most of the time it gets checked down to the river if the flop shows any amount of action on it. The most reason one was a K-J-T-T-Q board, that got checked in a four-way pot with Hellmuth scooping by showing A-K-x-x.

Hope For Hourani!

Adam Hourani who has been one of our short stacks just got all-in, the board read Q-8-3 and Hourani pushed for his last $94,000, Negreanu was priced in with 8-7-6-5 and called to find himself up against A-A-5-4 and needing to double pair or hit trips to win. The turn was a 10 giving Negreanu another 4 outs, but the river paired the trey and gave Hourani the pot.

Negreanu and Hellmuth are now the joint shortest stacks.

No casualties so far, which is a little surprising given what a big action game Omaha is, nevertheless the crowd is packed to the rafters here in the amazon room as Hellmuth aims for 12, Negreanu for 5, Chan for 11, Juanda for 4 and the others just for number 1.

Chan-neling The River

Early on, Johnny Chan managed to get the full value from his A A 9 2 against Brian Rast's A A 5 4. Rast flopped a flush draw when it came Q T 2 and improved by picking up a gutshot draw on the 4 turn, but the river the 2 giving Chan trip deuces and doubling up to over a million chips.

Hellmuth To Entertain For Longer

Phil Hellmuth called a bet from David Beyamine on a K-6-4 flop before moving in on the queen turn, Beyamine called with K-6-4-x for the mighty three pair, but Hellmuth was holding K-Q-9-7 and had made a better two pair to double up his meagre stack.

I get in ahead every moment of every day. Apart from this one.

More Lives Than A Cat

Hellmuth again got short and was all-in with K-K-5-4 against Brian Rast's A-A-2-2, but Hellmuth managed to turn a king and now he means business, or that's what he like us to think.