We're now on the 15 minute break, but the last several hands on Table Ram made for highly intriguing viewing for little ol' me at ringside.
There's definitely a contrast in strategies - whilst Gavin Griffin has decided to sit on his stack and wait for Ram or Kim to depart, the aggressor of the table is Marc Karam, who is clearly trying to take advantage of Gavin's approach over these last several hands by bullying the smaller stacks. However, although Kim and Van Der Berg (the latter in particular) are playing patient poker, Ram Vaswani is quite happy to shovel it all in, whether Kim is down to the wire or not, and this was on full display when he re-raised Mark Karam's 60k bet all-in for 462k. Laid back with the Top Gun shades, Ram twitched his foot underneath the table, but above was as a cool as a cucumber, seemingly giving off no signs of a tell.
The very next hand, these two locked horns once again (I swear, Karam is either going to remove or double up Ram at some stage within the next 20 minutes), only for Karam to return the favour, moving all-in to Ram's 40k bet (Ram had limped on the button) on a
Flop. As is the way with this table, no amateur dramatics and Ram folded instantly, with no real sign of remorse. Simply an 'okay, you got me, next hand' kind of attitude which is a joy to watch and perfect for the flow of the game.
Then, with recent double-upper (but still very short) Alex Kim allowing himself to land on the big blind with just 70k and blinds of 10k and 20k, he decides to take a gamble with
after Karam had made an inevitable button raise with
.
Of course, Karam called the extra shrapnel in a jiffy, but was chagrined and understandably frustrated to see his opponent make trip Nines on a
Flop. "Queen," demands Kim in a reverse psychology (or Gusology) moment. But, with Karam looking on quietly, although anxiously out of his seat, no Nine or miracle runner runner arrives with the Turn bringing a 2 of spades and the River a harmless 5 of clubs.
"Alex is up to 200k," adds Big TK, and after Gavin Griffin takes the small blind away from Ram with a 60k bet from the big, the dum dum sounded and we moved into the 15 minute break.