On Monday night, going head-to-head with two Monday Night Football games on ESPN, the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event began airing on ESPN2. Like in recent years, the action started not on Day 1, but on Day 4, when 661 entrants remained. Amar Anand held the chip lead and Phil Hellmuth (pictured) graced the feature table.

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To open the first hour of coverage, Daniel Negreanu, seated at an outer table, put in a raise, saying he didn’t actually see three diamonds on the board until after he bet. Negreanu didn’t have a flush and his opponent got out of the way, giving “Kid Poker” even more chips.

Meanwhile, Michael Shanahan won a pot with K-J of diamonds against K-J offsuit after rivering a flush and delivering a bad beat. He became the new chip leader of the Main Event as a result. Trending the opposite way was former Main Event winner Jonathan Duhamel, who ran K-Q into A-7 on his final hand. The first Main Event champion from Canada was drawing dead by the turn and busted out.

Antonio Esfandiari, the inaugural Big One for One Drop winner, doubled up an opponent who flopped a pair of nines and rivered trips. Esfandiari held ace-high in the hand and dropped almost half his stack.

Joe dude904McKeehen (pictured) busted a player who had pocket tens after hitting a set of aces. Then, William Wachter, the oldest player ever to cash in the Main Event at age 94, hit the rail after committing his chips with K-J on a flop of 3-7-A against an opponent who had A-J. The board filled out K-7 and Wachter was eliminated.

Back at the feature table, it was Hellmuth being Hellmuth. ESPN showed a segment called “Mic Check” in which Hellmuth spouted off phrases like “Three times they re-pop; it’s gonna be such a good day” and “It’s so yummy.” Yummy indeed. One of our favorites was, “You play the cards, Mukul [Pahuja]; I play the people… and the cards.”

To start the second one-hour episode, it was ice cream time. Hellmuth asked Tournament Director Jack Effel for rocky road ice cream for the table, but Effel ended up bringing out chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry instead. Who says the WSOP doesn’t play favorites?

In non-dairy matters, 2013 WSOP November Niner JC Tran was all-in with kings against jacks and watched as his opponent hit a jack on the flop. Tran busted as a result and the camera flashed to Negreanu moving to the feature table.

Also at an outer table, 2013 WSOP Main Event champion Ryan Riess (pictured) moved all-in pre-flop with pocket sevens and ran into pocket queens. The board ran out 3-9-3-4-4 and Riess was done.

Back to Hellmuth now. He shoved all-in with queens and got a taker in Negreanu, who had A-K. “Kid Poker” hit a king on the flop and never looked back, sending Hellmuth to the rail. As ESPN poker commentator Lon McEachern put it, “It all comes crashing down for Phil Hellmuth.”

In his post-game interview, Hellmuth appeared a tad vindictive, saying, “I made him call it off on a guess.” He added that he had only been all-in twice during the 2015 WSOP Main Event and said he deserved to still be in the tournament. Poor Phil.

You can catch new episodes of the WSOP on ESPN2 next Monday at 8:00pm ET.

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