Brian Lemke Busts Two Players To Take the Chip Lead

Brian Lemke raises under the gun, Vivek Rajkumar calls from middle position, another player calls from middle position, and Beth Shak calls from the small blind. (Four players in the hand.)

The flop comes [QhJc3d], Shak checks, Lemke bets 2,500, Vivek raises to 7,500, and the third player min-reraises to 12,500. (Lemke and Shak later said they felt that this min-reraise was a mistake, and that he meant to call.) 

Shak folds, Lemke calls, and Vivek re-reraises to 27,500. The middle-position player calls, as does Lemke. (Three players still in the hand.)

The turn card is the [Kd], Lemke checks, and Vivek moves all in. Then the middle-position player moves all in. And then Lemke calls, covering both of them. They turn over their cards:

Brian Lemke:  [KcKs]  (set of kings)
Vivek Rajkumar:  [QcQd]  (set of queens)

Third Player:  [QsJh]  (two pair)

Since the third player has the fourth queen, he and Vivek are both drawing dead to Lemke’s top set. (The meaningless river card is the [8d].)

Brian Lemke  –  320,000
Vivek Rajkumar  –  Eliminated

After the hand, Beth Shak (92,000 in chips) expressed shock that nobody had a straight, and said that if she had two pair in that spot, she’d have thrown it away without a second thought.