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The Pokerstars Dortmund EPT at Casino Hohensyburg will start at 3pm (2pm GMT).

Well, the usual frenzy of registering, accreditation and milling is underway.  We don't have player lists quite yet, but I am off into the throng to bring some names back.  Plus, if you're the type to recognise people more by their screen names, there's a full draw of all qualifiers up on the EPT website.

Looks like it's heading for a pretty timely start, maybe actually at 3pm (2pm UK).

Spotted as they squeeze through the tournament room bottleneck (Player ID checked as they seem to be handing out champagne, which is nice):

Andy Black
John Shipley
Dave Colclough
Iwan Jones
Mats Iremark
JP Kelly
Torstein Iversen
Mads Andersen
Pascal Perrault
Julian Thew
Pablo Rua

And the cards are in the air - level one is progressing with quiet intensity, and there are therefore not too many giant pots to report.  No, wait, Homer has one.  But to stall until he can tell you, a few more people noticed on the first wander (the room is very tightly packed with tables, making the inner ones inaccessible unless you want to climb over players or squeeze through their chairs in an annoying way, which we don't):

Paul 'Pab' Foltyn  (right near the entrance and therefore very watchable)
James Feeney  (Gutshot online qualifier)
Joe Beevers
Osman Mustanoglu
Mike Tse
Andreas Hagen
Antony Mackay
Jeff Rogers
Steve Vladar
Henning Granstad

Early position limps, Henning Granstad makes it 225, all pass to the limper who calls.

8d 2c 5h

The limper check calls Henning's 350 bet.

5c

Both players check.

9s

Limper leads out for 1k. Henning makes it 2k. Limper calls. Henning shows Kc Kh but the limper was holding 5d 4s

Joe Beevers gets it all in -

Yes, with 15 minutes left of Level One, the Mobster's tournament life was on the line.  For a good five minutes, too -

On a board of 3h 4d 3s 2s his neighbour (they're heads up and there's 3,800 in the pot) bets 2,000.  Joe thinks for a little while and moves in, for a total bet of 7,800.  This is a big decision for Initial Bettor (whose pink apparel deserves a photo; see below) and the full Time Bank is used, until he eventually concedes the pot to Joe.  Then they had a chat about it, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

Elsewhere:  Bad Girl check raises on a Kh 7d 4h flop when the button has a go for 800.  He doesn't want to call 2k, however, so she's off to a decent start.

After a not-so-decent start for Henning Granstad, he gets a little bit back from that neighbour on the river:  Kd 3s Qd 9h Th the board, and a valuetastic raise to 750 from 250 gets him paid off with his Qc Jh.  Slowly does it...

Rubix Cube Update:

Mats Iremark has completed it. Then he got bored and messed it all up again and started to do it again.

Julian next to him is accumulating chips, he bet 600 on a Th 9h 5s 7c board and got one caller and then bet a milky 500 on the 6d river which is when his opponent folded.

Lee Mulligan is really cross with himself, he threw three chips in meaning to bet 700 into a 1k pot but picked up the wrong colours and bet 2,500. His opponent realised and moved in forcing the APAT Welsh Winner to fold. He has about 6k.

JP has about 3k, Jon Raab said something about running Queens into a set of 4's

Pab is above his starting stack now, having previously had 7k he's back up to 11k.

Meanwhile Jeff Rogers is OUT. He held Fives on a J-5-3 board. His opponent had Jacks. Ouch.

OK, despite the intermittent Wifi (which is great when On), here are the chip counts gathered in the break.  Just before the break - so you get table One in its entirety, and then a hastily swept few others as the clock counted down four minutes.  Here they are:

Table 1

Claus Schumacher   10,100
Tommy Dender        9,100
John Shipley           11,100
Samuel Lehtonen     7,500
Dirk Specht             15,000
Dilba Denurbarg        10,700
Daniel Ryderman       7,975
Ahmed Koc              13,600
Nicholas Donieb         7,700

Others Scattered

Jim Kerrigan             14,900
Michael Lunderskov   14,200
Elky                        17,000
Henning Granstad     14,250
Mark Bartlog              8,100
Pascal Perrault          10,650
Dave Colclough         10,000
Anders Wijk               7,600
Praz Bansi                 20,800  (the towers of "I've been stealing" green have mutated to red and blue "I've been outplaying" ones)
Bad Girl                     11,000
JP Kelly                     5,450    (only three red 500 chips remaining, but the black and green 50s and 100s add up)
Torstein Iversen         12,500
Mike Tse                    7,350
James Feeney            7,400
Pablo Rua                  10,250
Bruce Atkinson           12,000
Johnny Lodden           14,600 
Andreas Hagen           22,000
Tony Mackay              21,650
James Akenhead          9,100
Pab                           12,500  (Just been moved - not happy about it, but stabilising after that bumpy first level)

Hay 19,000+ chips - just saw him take down an ever-so-slightly dodgy pot on the river... the board read Th 4s 3c 7h 5c.  He bet out against his one opponent, button man Rolf WeiBhaupt, who called the river 2,500 (3,500 in the pot) and was shown Kc 6c.  Somewhere along the line, a gutshot was hit...
"Pokerstars play!" muttered the disgruntled German, and then some other stuff I couldn't understand under his breath but I think it was rude... ;)

Online high roller Arnaud Mattern is OUT after playing three hands (pretty much).  Tens took his stack under 10k in the first level (an Ace on the flop and a call there too switched him off) before two pairs of Queens did the rest of the damage.  The first time he re-raised on the button to 1,200 preflop, and got one caller, who checked the T-6-6 flop, Arnaud bet 2,000, and after nearly a minute Matey pushed in, making his fold quite easy (he was against K-K).

Then button Queens again, mid-position raiser made it 500 (blinds 75/150) with one caller and then a re-raiser to 1,500.  He called, with the intention of re-evaluating, he said, on the flop, if there was no Ace or King.  Or Jack.  In fact he wasn't 100% about this call, but when the board came down 6-6-4 he faced a 3k bet and with only 5,500 left went for it.  He was against Aces, no help, and an early dinner.

 

So a few updated counts:

Sven Hoffelner    8,400
Michael Ellis         5,500  (a valiant effort after being reduced to 1,700 after his QQ ran into JJ earlier)
Iwan Jones        8,075
Steve Vladar      28,000
Pab                   15,400
Julian Thew        22,500
Osman Mustanoglu  8,600
ElkY                    16,500
Karl Mahrenholz     9,400  (Folded middle set on a 2 3 4 flop to a big blind all-in check-raise, not happy about it; lucky the dinner break fell now)
Henning Granstad   12,000
Mark Bartlog           13,850
Praz Bansi              20,400
Bad Girl                  7,300  (No, wrong, doubled up just now, but I have a story about her losing a pot, so let's pretend that's still accurate)
JP Kelly                  7,200
Torstein Iversen      15,450
Andreas Hagen        26,000  (Too early to tip him?)
Thomas Wahlroos     don't know but James Akenhead tells me he has 11,000.  That's 11,000 more than James.

OK so after just six players were eliminated in the first level, we've had a few more now:

James Akenhead had an averagey stack (or a bit more, 15k) when a 'rock' raised to 500 preflop (blinds at 100/200).  His Sevens on the cutoff looked like they merited a call - fair enough - and the blinds jumped on the bandwagon.
Flop:  8-7-5  So when the initial raiser bet 2,000, it looked like a correctly identified, and picked off, overpair.  Raise to 5,500.  But no, the small blind pushed in now, which was around 8,000 to call - even if they'd limped their way into a flopped straight, it wasn't the worst call in the world ("I can fold," he says in the clear light of Hindsight)... No pair-up and a dinner-break exit due to the other guy's 6-4 straight.

Praz has dropped 3k betting 7c 6h on a 4d 9h 5s flop and having the big blind move in with 9d 5s. Turn and river were Kh and 5c filling the big blind up.

Elsewhere, JP raised from the small blind and was called by the big. He bet out 725 on the Js 3c 8s flop and was called and check/passed when the 7d came on the turn when the big blind confidently bet 1200.

Finally Tony Cascarino moved all in on a 8c 7d Qd Td board for 5k and got a quick pass from his opponent.

That hand with Bad Girl which took half her stack or so - she was in the big blind with Ts 3d.  Limp from Matey in early-mid position, small blind makes up and the flop comes a tasty Ks 3h 3c.  Bad Girl checks, Matey bets, call.
Turn:  Tc  Full house gets a check-raise from Bad Girl.  Matey calls.
River:  Kd  Now she checks, and resignedly calls the 1,500 (a small bet but a crying call).
Matey shows the mighty Kh 8h for the two-out rivered bigger house.  And as she mucks without showing he says, "King with a smaller kicker?" which was odd...but quite funny.

A few soundbites I got in the break:

Steve Vladar (28,000 and one of the chip leaders), "It's all going alright at the moment."

Iwan Jones (9,000 Same table as Steve), "I want our table to break and to be put on a table full of scandies who'll give me their chips."

JP (9,950 counted out his chips for me, bless him) "Better than when I had 3k."


Finally Thewy tells me a story, "UTG, old guy makes it 600 with the blinds 100/200 and then a guy in early position makes it 1600. They both seemed fairly rocky and I had Ace King and decided to pass, and then UTG makes it 5100 and the re-raiser calls(!) They both have about 15k back after this and the flop comes Q-7-9 rainbow. UTG asks how much the other guy has before leading out for 6k, other guy eventually passes Jacks. UTG shows 66!!" Julian then adds, "That's what I used to do!"

Henning Granstad and Mark Bartlog to his left - forgot to relate a hand I saw earlier; not a lot changed hands but it shows the atmosphere on the table:

The cutoff raised to 600 and Henning (on the button) said something along the lines of "You trying to steal my button?" before calling, while the big blind called too.  Flop: 8c 3c 7s checked round.
Turn:  Kd check-check and Henning couldn't help himself betting 1,200.  Pass-pass and a showing of A-9 from a more comfortably-stacked Henning.
Mark told the preflop raiser, "He's calling your raises with A-9 now, you got him set up!"  He's not been knocked down yet, though...

Claus Schumacher   37,000
Tommy Dender        1,700
John Shipley           4,100
Dirk Specht             16,400
Dilba Denurbarg        13,200
Daniel Ryderman       6,400
Jim Kerrigan            17,000
Dave Colclough         6,600
Anders Wijk               9,250
Praz Bansi                 12,600 
Bad Girl                     17,200
JP Kelly                     12,800   
Torstein Iversen         14,000
Mike Tse                    7,450
James Feeney            5,175
Pablo Rua                  24,000
Bruce Atkinson           14,150
Johnny Lodden           30,000+
Tony Mackay              22,700
Pab                          15,750
Carlos Ferron            30,000+
Sven Hoffelner           8,025
Iwan Jones               11,800
Julian Thew             23,450
Steve Vladar             23,100
Osman Mustanoglu        10,000  (Yes, exactly where he started 6 hours ago, as he told me resignedly)
Edmund Carter            50,000+ (chip leader by a good 10k or so)
Thomas Wahlroos          15,700
Mads Andersen         13,900
Christian Grundtvig    6,800
Lee Mulligan            3,400

When these counts were taken the blinds were just finishing on 150/300 and heading into 150/300 ante 25.  Players remaining:  178.  It's going to be a long week.

John Shipley is OUT, no details I'm afraid.

El Blondie is also OUT, having been hovering around the starting stack, he was getting shorter and limped on the button with 8d 7d after utg limped. The big blind checked and the flop came a likable 8c 8s 2h. Sadly the big blind was holding Ac 8h....

Andreas Hagen has eliminated a scandieboy on his table:

He called a raise from the blinds and the flop came Qs 2c 6s.

Both checked before Hagen check/raised scandieboy's 1200 turn bet to 2700 when the Jc came only to have the latter push for another 5,150. Hagen really didn't like the 3-bet and called the extra 5k (which he could well afford) saying, "Show me Jacks..."

Instead he was shown the Ad Qc which was drawing dead to Hagen's 2s 2h and the Js river was academic.

And Lee Mulligan is OUT -

Short stacked as the blinds get heavier, he made a stand with 6c 6h and ended up racing A-K (of Emo Wim, I've been informed).  Two Aces on the flop made it look unlikely that he would survive that confrontation, and indeed the APAT Qualifier has left the tourney.  He looked like he was suffering a bit of that post-knockout adrenaline comedown, but it looks like he's also greatly enjoyed the EPT experience.

Iwan Jones' chip stack is looking ropey after a losing confrontation with Tens against AQ (having Morten Erlandsen on the button on his blind can't be the easiest situation to manoeuvre in).  Just now he raised on the button and found a non-believer in small blind Jim Kerrigan.
Flop:  5d Qc Qd  Must have gone check-check
Turn:  6c  Now Jim bets out 1,500 and Iwan folds, showing Aspades Kd.  Jim sheepishly reveals the Qh.

"He didn't believe me raising on the button," says Iwan, correctly.
"He had me dominated," admits Jim, "I had King Queen.  Three outs, and I hit two of them at once."

Blinds are now 200/400 with a 50 ante, so with it being almost 1k a round the short stacks like Elky (3k) better start getting a move on.

Elky tripled up, that's right, I'm no bok! His Qc Qh held against 8s 8c and another passed hand on a 5c 2h 6d Th 5h board.

JP -- 18k "I turned quads and he came out firing 4,000..."

Julian -- 16k "I've been moved tables 4 times, and I'm guessing this table will be broken in the next hour or so..."

Bad Girl just had a curious 'almost double-up' from a scandie. On a Ac 5c Ts 2s board she bet 2k with 4k back. Scandie min-raised and she quickly pushed and he insta-passed.

Third time's the charm (sorry) for Tony Mackay...

The only GUKPT hat-wearer in the room has a real problem with the dealers here - the local rules (the team is mainly local, not the usual EPT dealers, and even Thomas Kremser is absent) state that players have a minute to act, before they are prompted by the dealer.  That doesn't, of course, hold in a tournament like this, but there have already been three incidents where the toys have gone out of the pram, managers called and instructed to get it right.
"Bollocks to your f***ing rules!" he rants, after passing the Ad on a Kd Ahrt 6s 2s board on the big blind to the small blind's all-in move.
If the player saying he was relieved at the pass doesn't tilt him, the dealers eventually will.

Andreas Hagen is your current chip leader with 64k.

Elky is OUT and there's a Thewy-shaped object in his place, next to the chair of the DPF who is now the chip leader with around 82k.

Mats Iremark gains a few chips increasing his stack to 34,000 while taking those few off Johnny Lodden... I surmise he bet the Kh 9d Qs flop, with a call, then on the 3c turn he made a 5,700 bet which put Mr. Lodden to a decision.  The result of that decision was: No, which leaves him with 23,000 or thereabouts.

Elsewhere and Bad Girl chooses a bad time to "Gamble!" calling a very short stack all in from the small blind with Kh Qs.  The short stack fllipped Kc Kd
The Js Jh 4c flop gave plenty of hope, however, but the blank-y turn and Ks on the river doubled up the short stack.  She still has plenty (over 20k) however.

Sigi Stockinger bets 3k on an Ad Qs 6h 8s 4s board and gets a reluctantly matey to pass adding another 5k or so to his stack.

Other counts:

Henning Granstad    20,425
Mark Bartlog           11,200
James Feeney         18,000
Gary Harrington        16,400
Torstein Iversen        6,100
Paul Foltyn               15,300
Karl Mahrenholz        22,000
Sigi Stockinger         13,000
Volker Karran           15,700
Carlos Ferron            26,000
Praz Bansi                14,150
Bruce Atkinson         14,000
Julian Thew              25,000  (Quite liking the table he's arrived at after his fifth seat change)
Steve Vladar            30,000
Jim Kerrigan             36,000
Joe Beevers             17,400     

*******BREAK*******
The last hand before it, JP moved in over the top of another short stack (both with just over 10k)... on their backs and it was JP's Jc Jd vs. all-in's 6d 6c.  A Jack on the flop confirmed his aheadness and gave him a proper stack.  He has really fought his way up in chips today, from that measly 3k in the first levels up to over 17k and now topping the 20k mark.

There are definately two more levels to be played tonight.  Marathon, yes - justified by structure and number of runners, yes.

Meanwhile Pab has dropped to 10k from the heights of 17k. First he got pushed off Queens on a King high board when someone moved in, then he raised A-J and released after he was re-raised. He's returning to the fray looking for spots to push.

James Feeney is OUT - having called a preflop raise with Ac Qc, the flop came Tc Jd 2c and when the raiser bet he simply pushed and waited... the call eventually came from Kc Jh and no hit later, he's on the rail.  Wearing both a Gutshot T-shirt and Pokerstars jumper...

Action Action Action!!!


Gary Harrington moves all-in from early position fairly short. Torsten Iversen moves all-in straight after him, also short. Pab moves all in TOO after the pair of them, covering both.

Everyone else passes.

Gary Harrington:

8c 8s

Torsten Iversen:

7d 7h

Pab:

Ks Kh


Flop:

Kc Ac 9c

Pab liked that first card and hated the next two since Gary was the only one with a flush draw.

Turn:

Jd

River:

Td

Meaning both Harrington and Iversen are eliminated and Pab now has about 24k.

Julian checks a 3d Js 8s flop to Scandieboy.

Scandie bets 3k, Julian makes it 6.1k. Scandie passes.


Elsewhere a little Mateyboy squared action on Bad Girl's table as as shorty pushes in with Ks 9d and is called by the button's Th Td.

Board:

Qd 6h 5h Kd 5c.

Karl Mahrenholz is up to 40k or so.  I asked him what happened.  "I had Aces."  Pause.  "I had Deuces.  But I played them like Aces."
It turns out he'd called an all-in for 10k or so and found A-J - no hit and he scooped a big pot with a small pair.

Joining the contention for Chip Leader is Jim Kerrigan, who now has 60,300... hot on the heels of Frederik Hostrup with his 59,400.  Still no breakaway chip monster, although I still say the leader at the end of play will have broken the 100k mark.

Other counts from the somewhat weary penultimate level:

Osman Mustanoglu  22,800
Mark Bartlog           37,500
Henning Granstad    32,500
Paul 'Pab' Foltyn      31,000  (Just saw him break that 30k mark by stealing some blinds - I think he feels like that high point is a breakthrough)
Tony Mackay          14,000
Mats Iremark           26,300
Edmund Carter        38,000
Johnny Lodden        30,400
Julian Thew             26,000
Steve Vladar            36,000
Jim Kerrigan             60,300
Thomas Wahlroos     21,800
Pablo Rua                54,000

Mats Iremark is OUT and can concetrate on his rubix cube, he made his stand with 5d 6h and ran into pocket Queens receiving little help on the 5-J-7-8-T board.

Julian lost a chunk of chips with 8c 8d on a 4d 4s 2h board when his opponent moved in with Ac Aspades and Julian was pot commited and the turn and river came 3h and 7h.

Fredrik Haugen is the chip leader with around 84,000.

Johnny Lodden calls a raise and sees a T-3-3 flop against one opponent. His opponent bets out 5k, Johnny makes it 10k. His opponent makes it 25k. Johnny makes it 50k. Eventually he gets a fold from his opponent. Lodden shows A-5.

And with that, Johnny Lodden (nicknamed, bravely, by one of our American counterparts 'J-Lo') becomes chip leader, with 85,000.

And the blinds are now 600/1,200 ante 100, so those 20k stacks and under (JP teetering on the edge of that set with 20,000 and Bad Girl and Tony Mackay under it) are looking to get a few more before the end of play at the end of the level.

Praz just lost a 40k pot. The board was 2h 3c Qc and Praz put another stack all-in with his 3s 3h only for the slightly shorter stack to call for all his chips with Kc Jc.

A 7d turn but a 5c river sent the pot the other way.


He went out shortly afterwards with A-T into J-J.

The two letter answer?

With only 9k after that Eights hand, he picked a loose raiser and pushed in with A-9.  The raiser had Tens and a tired looking Julian is on his way to the taxi queue.  We feel like he's been one of the struggler-builders, like JP and Praz (more on this in a sec) and are sad he's out.

With just eight minutes left to play today, JP Kelly is eliminated...

After a long day of struggling from 3k to 20k and gently yo-yoing between that and 15k or so, he decided to move in, not so short as to be instacalled, mind you - he found a caller, however with Aspades Kd, and although his Qd 9c was live, the Kh 6c 6s 6d Js was pretty definitive.  A tough day ground out pretty well, and then an eleventh hour exit.

A couple of counts before they disperse (it's officially GAME OVER here and it's gone worryingly quiet.  Like taxis might be rare):

Henning Granstad     80k  (a last level leap to top five in chips)
Osman Mustanoglu    OUT  (A harsh beat all-in preflop with AA vs QQ - board 8-9-J...A...T)
Mark Bartlog              45k
Karl Mahrenholz         49,500
Sigi Stockinger            OUT
Joe Beevers                48k
Andreas Hagen           68k
Bad Girl                      17k
Bruce Atkinson            21k

Ok guys we are done now. Back at 2pm GMT tomorrow (3pm here) for Day 1B whose runners include Roland De Wolfe, Ram Vaswani and Micky Wernick. We'll post a full list of the Day 1A chip counts here when we get them later.

 ;stickaforkinme;