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Guten Tag und Wilkommen!

We're back for the Final Instalment of our coverage of the Pokerstars EPT Baden, where the players will go from 13 to 1.

Play still about 15 minutes away (well, scheduled as such) so we'll go check on the TV table area and pick a good spot for lurking.



******P.S.  This is the 'lite' thread - No replies - if you want to ask us anything, or feel like a bit of a harangue about something, go to Interactive*****

The last two tables:

Eichhardt  Peter  SWE  439,500
Argyrou   Argyris   CYP   392,000
Johnson   Ben   USA   352,000
Minieri   Dario   ITA        339,000
Nguyen   Thang Duc D   308,000
Balla   Andrea   ITA     287,000
Molander  Jonas   SWE   272,500
Biorac   Sasa   D          228,000
Cherednichenko   Rodion   RUS    218,000
Gould   Peter   GBR   190,000
Dodet   Daniel   BEL   167,000
Golser   Markus   AUT   125,000

Peter Gould is our 12th place finisher.

Peter Eichhardt raised from the button and Gould dwelt for a second before pushing all-in declaring, "I'm going to gamble with you."

Eichhardt calls.

Gould:

 Qc Td

Eicchardt:

 Ad 9c

Board:

 6s 4d 6h 2h Jh

Another Exit - this time short stacked Markus Golser, who moved in with Tc Ts and found Thang Nguyen ready to call with his Ahrt Jh
Flop:  Ad Qh 9d
Turn:  8s
River:  3c

So, five per table, they'll hopefully merge at nine, and move to the TV area at eight. 

Table 1

Jonas Molander
Andrea Balla
Dario Mineri
Argyris Argyrou
Rodion Cherednichenko

Table 2

Thang Nguyen
Peter Eichhardt
Daniel Dodet
Sasa Biorac
Ben Johnson

More than one all-in, no call while I was loitering up there just now.  Argyris is feeling chatty (again) and when Dario moved on him said, "One day I'll pick up a face card and I'll call you..."

Just back from upstairs and Dario and Peter Eichhardt are both raising almost every hand, the latter was stopped once when Daniel Dodet pushed after his utg raise. But he seems to be catching cards at the right time. He just took down a 128k pot from Thang.

Thang limps in the SB, Peter checks.

Board:

 2h 6s 4c

Thang bets 12k, Peter calls.

Turn:

 5h

Thang checks, Peter bets 40k, Thang calls.

River:

 7c

Both players check.

Thang:

 Aspades 5c

Peter:

 Qc 7h

A veritable flurry of hands for you now.

Firstly Peter Eichhardt bet 70k on a Jack high board only for Ben Johnson to push for only another 70k, Peter felt obliged to call with A-T but Johnson's K-J was good and remainined so.

Next Dario doubled up Argyris with Q-4 against A-9 on a 6-7-8-K-J board.

Then Argyris doubled up Rodion after raising his BB from the SB, the Russian's A-K was good and held against the Cypriot's A-9

Argyris Argyrou is our 10th place finisher.


Crippled in the Rodion encounter. His last chips went in with  Ad 7d but he was up against Dario's dominating  Ahrt Jd

The flop came:

 Qh 9h 7h

Ooooooooohhhhhhhhs and Ahhhhhhhhhhhhs from the crowd.

Turn:

 Th

Yells and screams from the italian contingent.

River:

 5c

There's quite a spectator ring at the moment - it's good that the nine are still playing in the Atrium bit as there's access all round the table, but someone else's head always seems to be in the way of the chip counting... nevertheless, here's my best attempt (in seat order):

Rodion           250,000
Daniel Dodet   210,000
Sasa Biorac     170,000
Peter Eichhardt  330,000
Jonas Molander  348,000
Dario Mineri       525,000
Ben Johnson     490,000
Andrea Balla      265,000
Thang Nguyen  470,000

Ok, they've all moved onto the same table upstairs which won't be redrawn when they go to the TV table. Jen has chippy counts for you.

Meanwhile there's not too many flops and a lot of preflop action.

First, Dario raises to 37.5k (blinds are now 8k/16k with a 1500 ante)

Thang re-raises to 125k. Dario dwells before passing  4c 4d. Thang shows  Ac Kd

Next Jonas raises TUTG to 40k and Ben Johnson re-raises to 150k. Jonas dwells for ages before folding  Qd Qh face up. Ben doesn't show but I'm reliably informed he had Aces.

Finally Peter limps on the button, Jonas folds the small blinds and Dario moves all-in from the big blinds for over 400k. Peter eventually passes.

Elsewhere Bad Girl is in the money in the €2000, she has 180k which is great considering the average is 97k sooo go Bad Girl!!! ;cheerleader;

Daniel Dodet doubles up on the last hand of this level, it was folded round to him one off the cut-off, and he put in a suspicously big raise of 80k, Peter Eichhardt moved all-in from the button. Folded back to Daniel who instantly called.

Daniel:

 Kc Kd

Peter:

 Qh Qs

Board:

 Aspades 5h 5c 8d 4d

And Daniel let out a whoop of delight at that river.

Peter is now short and we are on a 10 minute break. Blinds will be 10k/20k with a 2k ante when we return.

In 9th place, winning €31,445 is Andrea Galla.

And it was an outdraw - Button Ben Johnson raised to 60k, and small blind Andrea pushed in for a further 161k.  A think, and then clearly a decision that this was a move, because there followed a call from Ben with his Ac Td.
Andrea showed Ahrt Qc.

Flop:  Ad Jc Ts  The announcer announced that "Only a Queen or a King can save him now," and the guy on my right in the crowd went, "Or running Jacks."
Turn:  6d
River:  7h

There will now follow an intermission of 45 minutes.


P.S. I know only one Jack does just as well.

Final Table.

Seat 1.  Rodion Cherednichenko (Russia)  238,000 chips
Rodion Cherednichenko, 38, has only been playing poker for a year and has restricted himself to smallish live tournaments in his local casinos in Moscow. Nevertheless, the married father-of-three is used to stiff competition – he’s a former wake board and water-skiing champion, and is also a keen snow boarder and motorbiker as well.  Rodion is a software developer for computer games and also runs a refinery to recycle motor oil.

Seat 2. Daniel Dodet (Belgium) 452,000 chips
PokerStars qualifier Daniel, 41, is from Liege in French-speaking Belgium. He works in the insurance business and has only been playing poker for a year, but he caught the poker bug big time after finishing in the last 300 players in the WSOP main event (he qualified on PokerStars). Daniel is a regular on the growing Belgian tournament circuit and is planning on playing all remaining events on the EPT calendar.

Seat 3. Sasa Biorac (Germany) 194,000 chips
Sasa Biorac, 31, from Wiesbaden has been playing poker for 10 years but, until very recently, stuck to live high-limit cash games, especially Pot Limit Omaha.  He combines poker playing with running his own import business … but even if he wins here in Baden, he says he won’t be giving up his day job. “I really have two professions – poker and my business. But to be honest, unless I won every EPT from now on, I wouldn’t make as much as I do from my job.”

Seat 4. Peter Eichhardt (Sweden) – 91,000 chips
Former card dealer Peter Eichhardt, a pro for 11 years, has cashed in dozens of tournaments across Europe and in Vegas with his biggest prize so far being €77,400 after coming 2nd to Jonas Molander at the Helsinki Freezeout in December. His best EPT result was 7th at Deauville in 2005. A keen practitioner of the Japanese martial art Bujinkan, Peter, 40, lives in Stockholm with wife Lena. She will miss his progress on the final table though – she’s flying home this afternoon to care for the daughter Emma.

Seat 5. Jonas Molander (Sweden) – 358,000 chips
Molander from Stockholm, Sweden, has only been playing poker since March, 2004. Already, though, he has proved he is one of the best new talents to emerge out of Scandinavia. He plays online at PokerStars, where he qualified for the EPT Baden in a cash satellite tournament. He has also had great success playing live, after beating Peter Eichhardt heads-up the Helsinki Freezeout last December for $110,522, coming 12th in the EPT London last month for $18,830, and 9th in the EPT Dublin last year for $24,013.

Seat 6. Dario Minieri (Italy) – 652,000 chips
A prolifiic online player with PokerStars, Dario, 22, is no stranger to live tournaments either - finishing 22nd in the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo last March for $16,800, and 543rd in this year’s WSOP for $22,266. He plays so much online - often up to nine tournaments at once for seven hours a day - that he gathered enough Frequent Player Points on PokerStars to become the first player to buy a car with them - a Porsche Cayman. He lives in Rome, Italy, where he takes delivery of his shiny free motor in January.

Seat 7.  Ben Johnson (USA) 828,000 chips
PokerStars qualifier Ben, from Brooklyn, New York, was a keen player on the NYC chess scene before he switched his attention to poker full-time two years ago. He prefers the science of cash limit games to tournament poker, but he has a useful tourney record having cashed high in WPT and WSOP events (33rd in 2005). Ben, 29, was 'brow-beaten' into travelling to Baden after his buddy Yakov (AKA 'sacker') qualified in the 'last chance' qualifier for Baden. 'sacker' finished 40th, but Ben could go all the way.
 
Seat 9. Thang Duc Nguyen (Germany) – 506,000 chips
Originally from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Thang Duc Nguyen, 42, now lives in Hamburg, Germany. Married with ten-year-old twins, Thang Duc has had some impressive wins including two final tables in last month’s PokerStars.com World Cup of Online Poker, picking up a total of €35,000, not to mention 8th place in the 2004 WPT in Paris where he won €50,990. Yet despite these successes, Thang Duc says he’s “not ready yet” to give up his day job as a chef.


Thanks to Mad Harper from Pokerstars for these.

And they're off.  Thang calls a raise from Sasa from the small blind, as does Rodion in the big blind.

First final flop:  4h 3h 8s    Thang and Rodion check to the raiser, who also checks.
Turn:  9h   Check-check- All in from Sasa Biorac - 148,000

River: who can say; they both passed.  A murmur of "suspicious bet" runs round Rolf's end of the press room.  "One heart....."

Dario announces, "Raise."  Like he was doing most of Day One, although opponent Jonas Molander says he's got other gears and is probably his toughest opponent on the final.

Daniel Dodet re-raises the 31k to 150k - a quick pass.

Dario calls the all-in bet from Peter Eichhardt preflop:

Dario shows: 8d 8c
Peter shows:  Ks Qs

Flop:  Aspades 8h Tc
Turn:  5s



River:     4h

So Peter Eichhardt from Sweden goes out fast in 8th place, winning €47,167

Not only does Chris' pick outlast mine, he knocks him out first from the final.  Great.

Jonas Molander raises to 34,000... neighbour Dario immediately comes over the top to 190k.  (Showing those well-folded (in my opinion) queens might have encouraged this sort of behaviour...)

Jonas thinks about the extra 85,000 for a bit, and passes.

Jonas raises to 34k, Dario folds, Ben Johnson calls, Thang and Rodion fold.

Jonas bets 47k on the 4s 9h Ts flop. Ben calls

Turn is the Qs, Jonas checks, Ben checks.

The river is a dangerous looking Jd. Jonas checks and Ben bets 80k and Jonas folds.

Dario Minieri limps in, small blind Daniel calls and big blind Sasa checks.

Threeway flop:  5h 2h 4d   Daniel Dodet bets out 40k, then quick as a flash (almost at the same time as Sasa got out of the way) Dario says, "200,000" and just as quickly Daniel announces all in.  That's a tidy 220k or so more to the Italian.  Too much.  Pass.

Rolf seems to be getting excited that a Belgian is doing well.

Thang calls, Dario makes up and Ben checks.

9d 5c 5d

Checked around.

6d on the turn and Dario bets 23k, Ben calls and Thang folds.

River is the 6s, Dario checks and Ben bets 110k and Dario quickly folds.

Ben takes down the blinds with a 40k raise.

He then sees a flop Qd Th 2s with Rodion and Daniel who both fold to his bet also. He's winning a lot of small pots.

Next hand Dario raises to 36k, and everyone passes.

Blinds are now 8k/16k with a 2k running ante.

Jonas moves in for his 160k preflop.  Ben Johnson asks for a countdown.  Call.

Ben shows Aspades Js

Jonas  Qh 8h

Flop:  Kc Kd 3h
Turn:  5s
River:   Tc

So Jonas Molander finishes in 7th spot, winning €62,890


And I was just going to mention the slowness of it all...
John Duthie calls a break to move the players round a bit, and maybe thin down their large stacks of yellow chips.

Squelch has made the final table, is sat next to Marcel Luske, and opposite Bad Girl...wouldn't you know it, just while I was passing, he was calling her all-in.  Apparently she'd made it 30k, he'd raised to 90k, and then she'd pushed for another 120k or so....
He called with Aspades Qc
She showed:  Ad Qd

Chop.

Threeway flop on Sasa's big blind:

Flop:  Js Aspades 9d  The blinds check, as does limper Ben Johnson
Turn:  8s  Check-check, now Ben bets 40k and sb Daniel calls, while Sasa folds.
River:  8d  Daniel checks, and Ben checks behind.  This was a good idea, seeing as Daniel had Ks 3s for the turned nuts (although he can't have liked the river a whole lot).

Big pot for Thang in the big blind- a double through off small blind Ben Johnson, in fact.  It had folded round to Ben, who raised 40k and got a call.
I'm going to level with you here, and say I don't know exactly what happened on the flop, but it was Tc 9s 6d, which saw another medium size bet and call.
Turn:  2h  Ben checked, Thang moved in - call.
Ac 9d for Ben there, but only the flopped nuts - 7h 8h for Thang, who wins a new 700k+ chipleader stack.

Rodion moves in now, on the flop, pretty close to actually calling all in, with his shorter stack.  He's against Daniel Dodet, and the board stands:  Th 3h 8h

Daniel:  9h 9d
Rodion:  Ts Jc

Turn:  Kd
River:  Qh

So Russian wakeboarder (I was told this in all seriousness) Rodion Cherednichenko is OUT in 6th place, winning €78,612

Sasa almost immediately moved his whole stack in preflop on the small blind and there was another stand-up showdown, this time against American Ben Johnson.
Sasa had:  Ac Qs
Ben had:  Kh Qh

The board came out 8c Tc 7d 9d 7h and there was actually a bit of cheering for Sasa's double through from the rather deadpan rail... maybe they're just warming up to go wild for the heads up. 

Chip counts, courtesy of Duthie Himself:

Daniel Dodet      900k
Sasa Biorac         320k
Dario Minieri       1 mil
Ben Johnson      460k
Thang Nguyen   700k

Pot develops between Dario and Thang

Thang bets 45k on the 6c 9d 5s flop

Dario calls,

The turn brings an 8s

Thang checks, Dario bets 50k. Thang calls.

River is a possible carnage creating 5h.

Thang checks, Dario bets 150k. Thang folds.

Dario shows  Jh Tc.

He's a big chip leader now.

Blinds now 10k/20k, ante 2k.

Play has restarted.

And what a surprise, first hand back, "Dario announces 'raise'"

The 60k bet is met with a re-raise from Daniel Dodet, however, 200k worth.  Pass with the Ace shown, which kind of feels like some kind of poker cliche.

I like this easy table form for the less action-y hands, and it is in no way because I am a little bit lazy:

Action                                                                         No of times occurring

Dario takes it down preflop                                                                 3
Thang gets pushed off his preflop raise by Dario moving in                      1
Ben makes up the sb and wins a little pot betting the river                     1
Ben Johnson takes it down preflop                                                      1
Sasa opts not to play his hand                                                            6

Daniel Dodet wakes up, winning two successive pots, once with a simple preflop raise, and once with the same raise but with the added bonus of there having been a flat call from Thang, which he readily abandoned.

Action of the fully reportable kind!

Sasa moves in with Ac 2d
Dario calls with 6d 6c

Flop:  6h 3d 8d
Turn:  7c
River:  the camera didn't care

SO we have a fifth place finisher in Sasa Biorac, who wins €94,335

Dario Minieri raises quite a bit, but isn't shy about throwing the clearly filthy hands away when a timely re-raise (like Daniel's just now) traps his fingers in the till.

Threeway called flop seen (I think my language skills may be deteriorising)

Flop:  4s Ac 7c
Turn:  7h  Dario bets, Thang calls, they lose the third guy
Th  Thang checks, then so does Dario - 45 in Thang's hand takes it, and he mutters, "No bluff?"

Thang raises on the button to 55k, Daniel in the small blind re-raises to 165k, Dario clearly doesn't feel like sitting one out, so re-re-raises to 390k.
Before Thang passes a press pundit goes "Squeeze play," and it looks like a good call... Daniel doesn't look thrilled about facing this new raise, and Dario makes his mind up, saying "I could be crazy - I'm Italian...I play for fun!"  He passes.

Dario shows Ac 5d.

Flop:  2d 5s 9s  Thang and Dario check, in that order
Turn:  6s  Thang checks, 60k from Dario, call
River:  Qd

Dario finds the pause button, and checkswhile Thang collects the pot with his straight (7 8).

Ben Johnson raises it up to 140k, over the initial raiser's 60k or so (one guess who that was).  Pass.  That's it, that is all the action for 45 minutes now.  They're on a nice long break.  I am going to use up half of it eating steak, and the other half annoying Danafish, who probably doesn't know how to block me on msn.

Back around 7:30pm UK time, 8:30pm here.

OK, we're back and the four-handed play begins...

I bet you'd like to know the chip standings - well, OK then:

Ben Johnson        1,210,000
Dario Minieri           720,000
Daniel Dodet         680,000
Thang Nguyen      600,000

Daniel raises from UTG, Thang calls in the big blind.

Thang checks and Daniel pushes all-in on 4h 5s 6h flop, insta-call from Thang showing 7s 8s for the nuts, Daniel has Ahrt 2h

Turn:

Qd

River:

4d.

Thang doubles up and Daniel has 4k left...

Just to rub it in, Daniel Dodet now has to play another hand all-in on the big blind for his remaining 4,000 (blinds currently 15k/30k ante 3k so actually he's got 1k of his blind in).

Ben Johnson raises this hand and he has Ad Kh, fair enough.
Ac 9c for the little all-in stack.

The board comes Qd 8s 7c 3d 2s

And although this isn't the hand Daniel Dodet will have nightmares about, it officially places him 4th, for €110,057

Dario -- 700k
Ben -- 1.4 mil
Thang -- 1.4mil

Approx according to the all-seeing Edgar.

And almost immediately afterwards, Dario Minieri moves in, and a gasp went round the audience as Thang Nguyen took him on.
Thang showed:  Ahrt Qh
Dario showed:  Ac Js

Flop:  Aspades 8h 5d
Turn:  9c
River:  2s 

And you can just feel the room deflate a little bit as Dario's mates who were the best bet for some later clapping move to congratulate and commiserate.

Dario Minieri finishes 3rd, winning €125,780

Big Pot Preflop Prompts Me to Pay Attention to the Flop:

Flop:  Jd 5c 6h  Thang checks, Ben bets 450,000.  Thang moves all-in.  Surprise ricochets around the press room.  Ben doesn't appear to like that very much.  The bet, not our interest in it.  Ben asks, "Will you show me your cards if I fold?"  I think that generallly comes, in a deep-think situation, about 1.4 minutes before a fold.

Big sigh.

Fold.

Ben is still desperate to know Thang's hand.  "You guys get his cards there?  I'm going to have to move to Europe so I can see it...."

Thang raises again to 100k, Ben moves all-in. CALL!!!!

Ks Ts for Thang

7c 8c for Ben

Flop:

5c 7h 5d 8h 5h

Ben doubles up.

Blinds are now 20k/40k

They get to a turn card once, where Thang takes it with a bet - now they're seeing quite a few betless flops, and turns... I think Thang is whittling a few chips off Ben, but no drama for a good while now.

Sudden rockiness perhaps a little unexpected, but I think after Ben's double through he's not in a big hurry to be all in and called again. 

7h 6s 6c flop, for example - Thang checks, Ben bets 45k, Thang folds.

There you have an absolutely typical example of the hands from the last 20 mins.

A +130k raise from Thang finds Ben moving in preflop, fast, after originally limping on the button.  Hmmm.  Looks like 700k or so.  And.............. I think he's going to fold.

Ben gets put through the ringer again, and gets up and chats to his mate (I don't think he realises the whole press room hears every whisper as long as he's miked up).  Some tense pacing, and then finally Thang calls!  Man, it's luck

Thang   4d 4c
Ben     Kh 3s    "Good call," he says, shaking his opponent's hand

Flop: Ahrt 3h Qc
Turn:  4s
River: 9d

So Ben Johnson finishes in 2nd place, winning €251,560, and....

The Winner of the Baden EPT is Thang Duc Nguyen, taking first prize of €487,397 - now being interviewed with the help of a German-speaking interpreter.

He admits that he may not be a full-time chef any more after this.

SO - it looks like that about wraps up the EPT event here in Baden, and despite the dearth of external entertainment, it's been delightful here.

The TD is actually thanking the press and players for making the tournament so fair and enjoyable!  Wow.  They've been great to us, with emails of chip counts and seat positions arriving with regularity.  It's probably the most relaxing venue to work at, and that is a real compliment considering there are stairs here.