blonde poker forum

Play commences at 3pm (2pm UK time).  Full chip counts from the night before will be posted before start of play.

Overnight Chip Counts:

Lodden Johnny (Norway) -- 101400
Hansen Brian (Denmark) -- 88600
Granstadt Henning -- 84700
Haugen Fredrik (Sweden) -- 83400
Hostrugs Frederich (Denmark) -- 79900
Rua Pablo Luis (Spain) -- 76300
Paasonen Mika (Finland) -- 71700
Hagen  Andreas (Norway) -- 70600
Schepphorst Malrus -- 65500
Bartlog Mark (Germany) -- 64400
Van den Berg Thierry (Holland) -- 58300
Rasmussen Jacob (Denmark) -- 57000
Demirbag Dilba (Sweden) -- 51600
Kerrigan Jim (UK) -- 51000
Specht Dirk (Germany) -- 50900
Beevers Joe (UK) -- 49900
Vortmann Jens (Germany) -- 48800
Morad Qushqar (Afghanistan) -- 48500
Mahrenholz Karl (UK) -- 48300
Stek Romco (Holland) -- 45100
Liesy Marco (Germany) -- 44100
Blanco Cristiano (Italy) -- 43900
Andersen Alan (Denmark) -- 43800
Schweitzer Daniel (Austria) -- 40300
Vladar Steve (UK) -- 39900
Lindberg Erik (Sweden) -- 39000
Eidsvig Trond Erik (Norway) -- 38000
Witved Jesper -- 37900
Tse Mike (UK) -- 37000
Bosch Oliver (Germany) -- 36600
Hansen Dennis (Denmark) -- 36500
Hoffelner Sven (UK) -- 36500
Ros David -- 34600
Dender Tommy (Denmark) -- 33500
Hansen Martin (Denmark) -- 32900
Moncada Edward (USA) -- 32400
Muecklisch Michael (Germany) -- 30900
Holm Henrik (Denmark) -- 29300
Rosetta Emmanuel (France) -- 29000
Mankowitz Danny (Norway) -- 27300
Wharmby Gary  (UK) -- 27300
Mackay Tony (UK) -- 26800
Gustafsson Michael (Sweden) -- 25600
Ferron Carlos (Spain) -- 24100
Van Bum Nguyen (Germany) -- 23800
Schumacher Claus (Germany) -- 23500
Fazzone Davide (Italy) -- 20200
Lehtonen Samuel -- 20200
Barnes David (UK) -- 19700
Wahlroos Thomas (Finland) -- 19300
Ziegler Uwe (Switzerland) -- 18100
Foltyn Paul (UK) -- 18000
Hamidy Abdullah (Holland) -- 17500
Cowling Brad (Ireland) -- 17200
Holden Anthony (UK) -- 17000
Pham Xuyen (UK) -- 15600
Kammerer David -- 12300
Emo Wim (Holland) -- 9000
Hoelting Norbert (Germany) -- 6900

Strolling into the casino, looks like we are behind schedule again, I'm guessing another late start, 14.30pm GMT at the earliest.

Players spotted thronging the lobby:

Carlo Citrone
John Kabbaj
Barney Boatman
Ross Boatman
Ram Vaswani
Mickey Wernick
Ramzi Jelassi
Jonas Molander
Sebastian Riviere
Sverre Sundbo
Fabrice Soulier
Daniel Bertelsen
Marc Goodwin
Birgitta Johanssen
Juha Helppi
Martin Wendt
Roland de Wolfe
Noah Boeken
Theo Jorgensen
Rene Pedersen
Marcel Luske
Rino Matthis
Womble
Greg Amoils
Roy Brindley
Liam Flood
Ben Grundy
Jan Heitmann
George Danzer
Katja Thater

Table one, by virtue of being right by the entrance, is easy to keep an eye on, and there are quite a few fun players to watch there:

Rifat Pavevic
David Asche
Ramzi Jelassi
Jan Heitmann
Christopher Andler
Flemming de Hoog
Stu Rutter
Sargon Ruya
Kristian Kjondal
Johan de Kruijf

Also got the full lineup (minus seat 6 which isn't listed) for Table 6:

Ben Wolbers
Jakob Glassl
Jonas Molander
William Malloy
Christoph Wollers
?
Thiara Amarjot
Ben Grundy
Frank Blumlein
Mickey Wernick

News of (possibly the first) elimination:  I heard the words 'all in' and turned round to see Farid Meraghni moving in on the river of an 8c 8h Td 4s 6s board and getting called.  There wasn't 20k in the middle, so I reckon damage had been done to the all-in's stack prior to this.  Anyway, he mucked to Florian Langmann's 7d 8d and we're off to a flying start, compared to yesterday.

Everywhere you look more recognisable people pop up:  Paul Testud next to Rob Hollink, Martin Green, Michael Greco next to Sebastian Riviere, and P.I. Slade next to Daniel Bertelsen...

There really does seem to be a discrepancy in the number of Big Names in Days One.  I don't care either way - it was pretty entertaining yesterday and we're looking at ten hours of fun today too.  Deep breath, second cup of coffee.

Seems a bit more 'agreeeeesive' today, as Edgar Stuchly would say.

Roland De Wolfe bets 500 on the turn of a 9s 8s 7h 9c board, two players including Noah Boeken fold. One person calls. Roland then bets 1600 on the 3h river and is called, the other players asks, "Straight?" Roland shows 6d 5h and his opponent mucks.

Elsewhere Hans-Martin Vogl pushes all in on a 4s 5s 6h 3c 8h board for about 5k, with 6k in the pot already. Daniel Smits-Bertelsen thinks for a while and passes, I think Liam Flood and a couple of the other players put Vogl on a pure bluff there.


Finally, on the table in yonder distance an early position raiser makes it 300, (blinds are now 50/100). He's called in two spots before George Danzer makes it 1,550 from the small blind. The original raiser makes it 3,800 and everyone including George mucks pretty sharpish. Incidentally John Kabbaj is looking a bit short here, he's down to around just 3k.

Bad news for Cincinnati Sid followers - down to just 1,525 after a dramatically non-profitable first level and a half.  Just recently he lost a 3k or so pot (calling 1k on the 2h Ks 8d Jh board with Ad Qc and finding, when his opponent checked the 2c river, that he was against Aspades Kc) so cross your fingers for a double double-up!

Meanwhile Nick Slade is chatting away while having accumulated over 900 in green 25 chips in the first half of the first level...

Barney Boatman is gone, a lot of the damage was done apparently when held two pair of Kings and Queens, but his opponent had a set of aces. He then had Tc 9c against A-K and flopped a pair but Big Slick hit runner runner flush. Not sure where the money went in there.

We thought Ben Grundy had gone too, but in fact he'd been moved into Barney's seat, no major stack swings either way for him.


More definite is that Ram Vaswani is OUT. Recounted to me by one of the Ladbrokes guys, a guy sitting to Ram's right raised to 300 and Ram made it 1100 from the CO, everyone else passed and the original raiser called, and then check called Ram's 1800 bet on the Qc 2d 3c board. He then checked to Ram when the 5h came on the turn and Ram pushed and was instantly called. Ram was holding A-5 and was drawing pretty slim against his opponents pocket Threes, and indeed no four came on the river.

Counts from the other half of the room as the blinds go up to 75/150...

Ross Boatman       9,600
Richard Wild         10,875
Liam Flood            15,600
Carlo Citrone         10,275
Michael Greco       15,900  (The two Dusk Til Dawn players got drawn on the same table wouldyoubelieveit)
Sebastian Riviere    9,300
Marcel Luske         14,200
Noah Boeken        13,525  (The two Dutchmen, Flying and Pokerstars are also on the same table, with Noah in position to attack Marcel's blind...)
Stu Rutter            10,950
Ramzi Jelassi          13,800
Jan Heitmann        11,000
Priyan Demel         12,900
Katja Thater           6,575
Ian 'hotdog' Fieldhouse  14,000
Roy Brindley          11,500
Marcus Golser        31,500  (Chip leader, I'll warrant)
Juha Helppi            8,750
Tony Chessa          10,800
Martin Wendt         10,800
Roland de Wolfe     18,200  (Reassuring to see that even Superstars forget their phone chargers)
Mickey Wernick       11,100
Jonas Molander        7,000
Sverre Sundbo         3,000
Marc Goodwin         9,550

Jeff Kimber -- 6,700
Cicinatti Sid -- 2,350 (Just saw him push on a Jh Qc Th board to take down a pot)
George Danzer -- 8,900
John Kabbaj -- 6,275
Ben Grundy -- 6k

Ben was well above 10k until moments ago, then in a 4-way pot on a 5h Qd 5d board, there was a bet of 500, called in one spot, before a raise to 1200. Ben made it 3k getting just the raiser calling. He followed up with a 2.5k bet on the Th turn which was called before his opponent led out 4k on the 6d river. Ben dwelt for about two or three minutes, as there was now 18k in the pot. Then the dealer actually said something along the lines of, "You have to make a decision." In effect calling a clock, although I was there for the whole hand and no player had called a clock on Ben. (Local german rules say that dealers can call clocks on players). Ben eventually mucked, though he did take exception to the dealer telling him what to do.

Sverre Sundbo is after the title of climber of the day, having been down to just 600, he's now on a more modest 4,000.

Carlo Citrone calls an under the gun raise to 400 from the big blind.  Flop:  Ac Aspades Th  Carlo checks, UTG bets 400, Carlo calls.
Turn:  9c  Carlo checks, UTG Matey checks.
River:  Ts  Now Carlo bets out 1,000.  UTG calls.  This is quite mysterious considering Carlo then immediately tries to muck saying, "You win," but is forced to show some rag type cards before UTG shows his Ahrt Qc....

Paul Gourlay made it 600 to go under the gun.  One mid-position caller, and one of the blinds re-raised another 1,000.  Paul called, and so did intermediate caller.
Flop:  2s 2d 7h  The re-raiser simply moved in now for 4,900.  Round to Paul who looks at the third player gauging how many chips he's got and then eventually calls.  The other guy gets out of the way, Paul shows Jd Jc which were actually good against 9s 9c, and stayed that way.

More Gourlayaction.

First on a Jd 3c 4h Kh board he bets enough to put Ben Grundy all-in who passes quickly. Paul shows 3s 3h.

Next he limps in mid position and calls George Danzer's 800 chip raise before calling Danzer's push on a 9h 6h 2c. The latter action was done albeit quite reluctantly and included him asking other players if they felt George had Aces.

George:

Ahrt Ac

Paul:

9s 8c

Turn:

7d

"Lots of outs now," says Paul. George stays impassive.

River:

Jh

George up to 7k. Paul on around 30k still though.

The chip leader is Sebastian Ruthenberg who had pushed on a 4-T-5-4-Q board for 11.5k with 19.5k already in the pot. He found a surprising caller from a pair of sevens, which have put him up to 42k.

Ian 'hotdog' Fieldhouse is doing pretty well.  Over 20k currently, despite just getting away from a set of Deuces, like so:
A five-way limped pot, with a 2-3-6 flop.  Two checks, a bet of 900, Ian raised it to 2,200 and one of the blinds ("rocky") just pushed in over the top for 11,000.  Ian thought about it for a while, determined he'd shown enough strength for a bigger set or the flopped straight to do that (although he says he would have doubled the guy up if he'd just called and checked again on a blank), and laid it down.
He was shown the 4-5 just to confirm his suspicions.

The Flying Dutchman Marcel Luske has been scuttled. Jacks versus Aces, with an ace on the flop for good measure.

Stuart Rutter's table has just returned from break.  When I saw his stack was now 15,300, he said, "I tried to give some of it to Ramzi the last hand before the break, but it worked out for me."  What had happened?  They'd seen a flop 6s 5c 2d.  Ramzi bet 600.  Call. 
Turn:  Qc  Now Ramzi bet 1,500, and Stuart (out of position, probably should have mentioned that before) check-raised it to 3,500 (he held 7s 7h, by the way, probably time to tell you that, too).  Call. 
River:  Td   Stuart bet out 5,000.  This is the crucial part where he considered himself to have gotten the hand to go his way - the bet was so large that even though Ramzi (with Ace-high) had pretty much sussed that Stu's hand was a bit dodgy, he couldn't really do much in the way of raising.  He still thought about it for ages before passing with what one imagines to be slight irritation. 
Stuart was in that funny position of knowing that he (Ramzi) knew that he (Stu) knew that he (Ramzi) knew his hand wasn't great, but couldn't do anything about it.  Silly game.

Jonas Molander Makes Very Interesting Call News Now:
I wish I'd seen how this blind-on-blind hand with Jonas (sb) and William Malloy (bb) had gone all the way to the river, because they'd managed to get 7,400 in the middle.  The board:  Ahrt 5c 8s Ks Qc.  Jonas had checked and now faced a 2k bet from Malloy - he thought about it for ages.
And called what looked like a reasonably sized value bet with his 9c 8s
Willam Malloy showed Tc 8h.
Chop chop, amazingly.

Chip leader now is Tobias Holweger with about 50k.

Sitting next to him is Roy Brindley who just raised from UTG+1, to 475, the German next to him made it 1,175. Passed back to Roy who made it 3,475. German guy moves all-in fairly quickly and Roy passed instantly. (Surely the German guy should flat call the 3-bet, since Roy would have to fire on any flop?)

One of the most intersting tables is right at the back - it has these players and stacks on it:

Ben Grundy    3,600
George Danzer   5,700
Paul Gourlay      22,000
John Kabbaj       6,800
Fabrice Soulier   30,000

George had a larger stack by, oh, about Fabrice's divided by two a minute ago, before he raced his 9c 9h against Ac Qd.  The board brought a wheely 2-3-4-4-5 and so he's back under 6k.

More counts for which I have no stories but they'd better go up now because they're probably inaccurate by the time I've climbed the stairs to the press room:

Nick Slade         15,000
Womble             8,750
Paul Testud       11,925
Rob Hollink         5,200
Antoine 'Tonio' Boudat   13,350
Martin Wendt          OUT
Sargon Ruya       8,500
Jan Heitmann      11,300
Richard Wild        11,500
Cincinnati Sid        6,650

Jeff Kimber -- 14,800

Martin Wendt is OUT, something nasty sounding about a guy hitting runner runner straight.

Michael Greco Lays Down Kings News Now -

Michael probably wasn't loving the 3h Td Aspades flop, but his opponent's check on it made him tentatively bet 1k on the 7d turn, which was called pretty sharpish, and then he checked the 4s river.  5k at him and a bit of unnecessary self torture "I have a pair of Kings...Do you want me to call?"  to which he got the reply, "Call!" with an adamant sort of table slap from his opponent.  He flashed the Kings as they sailed into the muck and seemed annoyed by what he reckoned was his opponent's hit with Ace-rag, but which tablemates reckoned could also have been a monster AA. 

William Thorstein, 3rd at the EPT in Dublin, is sitting at a side table looking grumpy. So I think he might well be out.

Christer Johansen just flopped a Royal Flush, couldn't really get paid that much, but did take out a short stack who had pushed preflop.

Paul Gourlay is up to 40k. He showed down Aces on a 6c 5d 3c 2h Jd board and his opponent mucked and the 18k pot got shipped his way.

Elsewhere Thang Duc Nguyen is going very smoothly, on 45k as we speak. Somone to keep an eye on...

13,000 and possibly a little fatigued.  It sounded from his travel description like it was Goa (lovely), travel here (lengthy), get changed (quick), play straight away (lengthy).

Also still in:

Birgitta Johanssen   8,000
Antoine Boudat      8,200
Juha Helppi            20,000
Roland de Wolfe     36,800
Mickey Wernick       19,000  (more, actually, after whatever just happened happened)
Jonas Molander       15,500
Sverre Sundbo        15,000
Womble                 17,700
Nicolas Levi             12,900

Katja Thater has just come into the pressroom, so I'm guessing she is OUT.

Incidentally, if you had been wondering what Ben Grundy had when the dealer had the clock on him, he was holding pocket Kings, he'd flatcalled a raise (or re-raise,) hoping to trap the original limper (or raiser). But he's managed to grind up from 6k he was on up to 13,600 at present time.

So who's out?  Stu Rutter, in unfortunate circumstances -

He ran two pair into sets twice to knock him down to 7,000, then found Kd Kh under the gun.  He raised.  Small blind Jan Heitmann decided now was the time to push for his slightly shorter stack, with Aspades 5c.  The suits have been approximated.
The board came:  spade spade othersuit-rag Ks...(you must know what's coming next) spade - to fourflush Stuart out of the tournament, pretty much.  Jan said he'd buy him a drink.

I saw him in the restaurant area and he was implausibly chirpy.  "Am I meant to look disconsolate?" he said, beaming.

Jan Heitmann and Ramzi are both OUT.

Jan had Ace Queen against 6h 8h all in preflop and the flop contained both the 7h and 5h and his opponent hit one of his two bazillion outs. No info on Ramzi, but Jan also mentioned that he (Ramzi) was very card dead for most of the day.

Chip Rough Classifications (because the break was 4 minutes away):

Big Chip (40k+)
Fabrice Soulier (42k) Marcus Golser, Florian Langmann (82.3k), Mickey Wernick

Little Chip (>15k)
Marc Goodwin, Martin Green, Nicolas Levi

Nick Slade, who was just in the Little Chip area, just suffered some kind of beat which had left him with under 10k.  Then - a limp from the cutoff, button Marcus Golser raised to 2,000 and big blind Slade moved in.  Call.
Marcus showed:  Jc Jh
Nick showed:  Tc 7d  (tilt?  resteal?  I say both)
The board came:  Kh Th Ts 8d Ac and Nick should have a playable stack now, if he keeps his temper...

Geir Inge who just doubled up. The scales tipped from being a possible double up to an almost certainty when his opponent caught the perfect turn card.

Geir Inge:

2h 2d

Mateyboy:

Ac Ts

Flop:

Ts 8c 2c

Do you see where this is going?

Turn:

Tc

Dream card. (Apart from the 2s obviously). Chips shower down into the centre of the table.

River:

Qc

"50p in the tin..." says Ian Fieldhouse - and indeed what was a healthy 22k+ stack is now under 10k, it looks like.  He did, in fact, suffer a bad beat.  And by that I mean he got his money in well ahead, after a player called for his whole tournament life with a dominated hand, and lost.  An actual bad beat, rather than a cold-deck bad beat (AA cracked by KK, King on the flop type), or a not really bad beat (race, sucked out on by draw).

The situation - he found Aspades Ks under the gun and made it 1,200 (the blinds were 200/400).  Matey raised a further 2,500 (leaving himself 8k behind) and when Ian pushed in he instacalled with K-J.  7-9-T-J and the river helped not at all.  Bit of a struggle now.

Floppy on Jen's comp here. We've lost our EPT Copenhagen Winner Magnus Petersson. He raised in mid-position to 1900, Paul Gourlay made it 4k from the button, which was flat-called by the big blind. Magnus then pushed for around 15k more. Paul quickly passed, what I later discovered was A-Q. The bleach blonde big blind, (try saying that with your mouth full of jelly babies) dwelt for a little while before calling with Jacks, Magnus showed Ace King. The flop came with a Jack and no help for our last EPT winner. I asked the big blind his name but all I got was a scrawl on a piece of paper. Perhaps some expert sleuthing, (this could be a job for Slade P.I) is needed to find out his name.

Double through for Ian Fieldhouse - short for about a level after that earlier setback, he's now feeling the pinch as the blinds have reached 400/800 ante 100.  Time for an under the gun all in for 11,000...

Button Jeff Kimber dwells for a good long time, before deciding to take him on with 9c 9d.  Ian shows Ad Jh.
Flop:  Jc Ahrt 2s
Turn:  Ac
River:  academic

So Jeff is down to 10,200 in a reversal of fortune race.

Tough break for Irish player Frank Callaghan - he'd raised preflop (I don't know for sure, but it was probably him) with Aspades Ad and ended up heads up on a flop of 7d 7c Js.  He bet out 5,000, and the other guy raised all-in for around another six.  Frank thought for ages before calling, and the Ahrt 7s knocked him under 15k.  This happened a little while ago now, going to go check if he's still there.

After having been dented (Homer has the story) a few hands earlier, he found what looked like a favourable situation - Qd Qh vs. Jd Jc.  But no, a T-9-T-J-3 came, and that was that - Jonas quietly wandered off while his opponent got a bit shouty and excited.  I rather think if the situation was reversed there might have been a bit more decorum shown, somehow...

Sorry, you're not a bok, really.

Paul Gourlay News Now:

He's not really been in trouble throughout the day, and just now got a few more chips:  he saw a 3c Qc 8c flop out of position and bet out 5k.  Call.
Turn:  9c  Now he checked, and got a check behind.  The same happened on the 2d river and Matey showed Ahrt Qh while Paul slammed the Qs Jc down.  This was clearly misinterpreted by the dealer, who promptly mucked his flush, but after a few seconds the matter was resolved and the pot awarded correctly.  It just shows that staff of all kinds are getting a little fatigued at this point.

Last level of the night.

Extra lemon juice for the paper cut - I only saw the very end of the hand so missed two crucial points.  Jonas had check-raised all-in on the turn for the majority of his 50k stack.  So not only was he nastily outdrawn, it was most likely for the biggest pot of the day.  We feel that there is no justice in poker.

More on this, he had raised with Qc Tc and got several callers including Jeff Kimber who had been priced in with 4h 3d. All the chips went in on a Jc 3h 3s 9c board and the river didn't help Ian.

Elsewhere. Paul Goulay is up to heady heights of 90k, he called a raise with Jd Jh and was rewarded with a Jc Ts 2c flop and his opponent eager to put it all in with Ac Ahrt.

Finally Nick Slade is OUT. He lost a chunk passing Ad 9h on a 9s 5s 3s 5c board when his opponent pushed the turn. The rest went in preflop with Kc Qc when he was called by Aspades Jh. The Jc 4c Js brought a mixture of emotions but no help on the turn and river.

Just a few minutes left -

Richard Wild has been eliminated.  Very very short stacked, he moved in once with no caller before finding Fives on the big blind.  Small blind Jeff Kimber looked at one card and put him all in.  The card was the Ts.  There was the Td to go with it... although the board brought split possibilities, they failed to emerge and he's out at the eleventh hour, literally.  In good spirits, however, and already qualified for Monte Carlo.

And finally, Roland's table move put him to the left of equally aggressive Marcus Golser.  Much chat and back and forth of pots later, and Roland has become well and truly chipped up, and dangerous with it.  Look out for him tomorrow.  Homer is getting a few final details as they start to bag up for the night.

I'm going to get tomorrow's threads ready so we can sleep as late as possible before the 3pm restart (that's 2pm UK time for anyone who wants to watch the knockout part of Day Two at its most frenetic).

Ok and the climber of the day is Sverre Sundbo, who was down to just 525 chips at one stage and finished the day with 63.3k. Plus I did jokingly say I'd automatically give it to him if he got over 60k. Honourable mention to Ben Grundy also, who was down to just 2k at one point but finished the Day with 62k.