The Bubble Has Burst! Seniors In The Money
With a player on a nearby table about to be forced all-in on the next hand, due to his stack not equaling the impending big blind, Stephen Thacker looked down to see 
. While big slick is a sight for eyes at almost any other point in a poker tournament, the money bubble is one time you would rather see deuce-seven offsuit.
Thacker decided to take a chance and opened for a raise of 3,000. The action folded around to Gary McDonald and he surprised Thacker by three-betting to 9,000. Rather than muck his cards and live to survive the money bubble, Thacker went for the gusto and shoved all-in for his near average stack.
McDonald insta-called and flipped up the dreaded 
, giving Thacker little chance of surviving the all-in confrontation. The final board rolled out 
and Thacker was eliminated in what he thought was 397th place, one away from earning the coveted WSOP cash. Fortunately for him, however, it was determined that a smaller stack somewhere in the Amazon Room had gone broke before Thacker did, and he was officially listed in 396th place, earning $1,823 for his run.
While he stood in shock near his former table, thinking he had been the actual bubble boy, Thacker's fellow seniors began to cheer and celebrate, taking photos of the TV screens which officially branded them as winners in this tournament. Cell phones were whipped out and relatives were called with the good news: the remaining players had survived the largest single-day opening field in poker history and made the money at the world's premiere poker event.