Kings falter; Main Event in money

The money bubble at the World Series of Poker usually bursts when the shortest remaining chip stacks go all-in and are eliminated.

That’s not how it went Wednesday.

Two of the biggest stacks in the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship clashed during hand-for-hand play at Horseshoe Las Vegas, and Lucas Reeves of Great Britain was sent to the rail in cruel fashion.

Germany’s Christian Stratmeyer also was eliminated on the same hand at a different table and split the $15,000 prize for 1,517th place with Reeves. The two drew high cards for a seat into next year’s Main Event, and Stratmeyer won by drawing a jack to Reeves’ two.

Lingkun Lu of Jersey City, New Jersey, was the unofficial leader at the 8 p.m. dinner break and the only player with more than 3 million chips. The tournament continues Thursday with Day 5 and under 1,000 players from the record-starting field of 10,112 still chasing the $10 million first prize.

Day 4 started seven players away from the money, and Reeves was in 27th place at the start of play. He had around

120 big blinds when he entered a raising war against Marcelo Tadeu Aziz Junior of Brazil, who opened fourth in chips and was the only player at the table capable of knocking out Reeves.

While it appeared both players were trying to use their big stacks to take advantage of the bubble, it turned out that Reeves had pocket kings and was up against the pocket aces of Junior in a classic cooler.

Reeves eventually seven-bet all-in for almost 1 million chips and was called to create the biggest pot of the tournament. When the runout was no help, Junior vaulted into the chip lead.

Stratmeyer had about seven big blinds when he shoved ace-king against Terrence Reid, who held the unsightly eight-three but could easily afford to make a loose call. Reid then flopped three-of-a-kind and scored the knockout.

Defending champion Daniel Weinman was eliminated after making the money, as was popular pro Daniel Negreanu. Among the notables still in the tournament is 11-time WSOP winner Phil Ivey.