Daniel Copeland busts in 18th place, winning £985...

He makes a raise to 32k (blinds now 5k/10k ante 1k), and when queried by button Christopher Brammer, makes it known he's got 135,500 behind.  Brammer goes all in.  The blinds pass.  Copeland thinks about whether now is tournament-on-line time:



Meanwhile, Brammer confidently just sits and waits.  Eventually Copeland calls, showing , but Brammer's are in front, and stay that way, busting the first of the last two tables and increasing his stack yet again.

Play has just now recommenced after the final 18 moved to make way for the tournaments just now starting at DTD.  And here's what they're playing with:

21   1   Peter Charalamobus - 194,200
21   2   Ivor Frost - 154,000
21   3   Ian Gascoigne - 343,200
21   4   Sandeep Shah - 354,600
21   5   John Stritch - 107,800
21   6   Peter Linton - 96,900
21   7   Tom Rutter - 111,300
21   8   Tom Kugelstadt - 287,700
21   9   Amer Latif - 146,100

22   1   Paul Gourlay - 142,000
22   2   Andrew Papageorgiou - 96,000
22   3   Jeremy Betts - 283,500
22   4   Daniel Copeland - 153,000
22   5   Matthew Lewis - 161,000
22   6   Steve Brown - 145,000
22   7   Panos Panayi - 416,000
22   8   Christopher Brammer - 287,500
22   9   David Mundle - 107,500

Paul Lammas busts with bang not whimper - his exit pot has propelled his eliminator Tom Kugelstadt into the healthiest chip position he's had so far this tournament.  Money had already accumulated to the tune of over 50,000 by the time the flop betting went mental - the flop was and it looks like Lammas led for 30k before being shoved on by Kugelstadt, who went into hibernation mode, hoody down, silent etc.

A long time passed - so much so that about three hands were dealt on one of the other tables while he thought - but he went for it in the end with for the rest of his 80k or so - but was in worse shape than he would have liked against Kugelstadt's flopped set with .  No help, and here he is standing pre leaving:



And to the victor...

A very large pot brews threeway with Paul Gourlay, Jeremy Betts and Jordan Burnett.  They're all interested in the flop, and still in the turn.  The rivered , looking conspicuously red among all those black cards leads to a frustrated fold from Gourlay when Burnett moves all in.  He held which may have been monstrous on the turn but really wasn't going to cut it with no further drawing to be done...

Action over to Jeremy Betts, who tanks.  And tanks.  And calls.  With !  It's good - Burnett had been making a last-ditch stab with missed .  Nearly 300k ships to Mr. Betts, and Burnett has <1bb.

Michael Millar just doubled through in crowd-pleasing fashion after getting it in pre (I think/hope, although if they somehow saw a flop first the hand is funnier) with , looked up by Daniel Copeland in the big blind who had the reasonable .  Millar had .

Flop:
Turn:
River.... .... .  Oh yes, that wheel ships Millar a playable c.120k (according to Simon Trumper).  Copeland not weeping just yet as he's got at least 140k still to play with.

Next payout:  £600

Chip Counts at the Break

Amer Latif   31   3   294600
Sandeep Shah   32   5   230400
Paul Gourlay   22   1   196400
Daniel Copeland   31   1   189500
Paul Lammas   21   1   171800
Ken Wheatley   22   4   161900
Panos Panayi   31   6   160800
Christopher Xenofontos   22   8   157600
Jordan Burnett   22   5   149600
Andrew Beardmore   32   6   138900
Matthew Lewis   32   1   136300
Jim Peppercorn   31   8   133600
Peter Linton   21   6   122300
Andrew Papageorgiou   22   2   110500
Tom Kugelstadt   21   8   107700
Tom Rutter   32   8   100900
Ian Gascoigne   31   5   97400
Michael Millar   31   2   94400
Adam Vinson   32   2   93800
Christopher Brammer   32   7   87600
David Mundle   31   7   83500
Jeremy Betts   22   3   75200
Peter Charalamobus   32   4   74700
Ivor Frost   21   2   71600
Steve Brown   22   6   71200
Denis Ford   21   4   69600
John Stritch   21   5   52000
James Williams   21   9   46300
Stephen Holloway   32   9   43500
Sidicki Mohangee   31   9   25400
Harry Dunnell   21   7   25300
Luke Hallinan   22   7   15800

Another player who's been sort of gathering momentum in these latter stages is Ken Wheatley, in the black shirt next to Jordan Burnett.  Edging up to the 200k mark, he's happily raising when limpers limp and benefitting accordingly.



PS Check out John Perrin in the background who looks like he's about to Ascend bathed in heavenly light.

31   5   Ian Gascoigne
31   6   Panos Panayi
31   7   David Mundle
31   8   Jim Peppercorn



Panayi, the guy in profile with his mouth open (seems fair - he's quite a continual talker as it turns out) has been moving his mountain of small denom chips in with abandon this level.  He's actually done it at least five times (raising a chunk of green 1k chips which pretty much represents stack commital).  I haven't really noticed him doing much prior to this, but I think this is an oversight of ours rather than that his style was conservative and we were unlikely to see him play a hand.  Right before the break we're on he did it again, raising to 16k, but this time Jim Peppercorn promptly made it 40k to play and he threw his hand away immediately.

Tom Rutter and Michael Millar are duelling regularly at the moment - both with tidy stacks (Rutter's a little tidier).  Just now Rutter reraised Millar out of the small blind preflop, and Millar instantly gave it up.  "Chip dumping!" shouts Pete Charalambous.  This is widely denied by both players, who are doing that "What did you have?  A strong hand?  You call a reraise?" verbal tango.

"Text him your hand," suggests Pete.
"I put my phone in the washing machine," admits Tom.
"You didn't have a hand," they continue badgering each other.  "I had half a hand."
"Chip dumping!" Insists Pete.
"Why would we chip dump?  We have the same stack!"  Though this is not really a valid argument, it distracted Pete long enough for the next hand to be dealt.

Michael Millar



Tom Rutter staring at Michael Millar in yet another reraise pre confrontation (this time Millar reraising out of the big blind while Rutter is on the button):

22   1   Paul Gourlay - 140,000
22   2   Andrew Papageorgiou - 165,000
22   3   Jeremy Betts - 55,000    (OK I know he's meant to have just gone out, but someone's sat there and I never was sure what Mr. Betts looked like and there seem to be four full tables of in-the-money players so I am not sure if he's really out now.  Will ask seat 3.)
22   4   Ken Wheatley - 160,000
22   5   Jordan Burnett - 122,000
22   6   Steve Brown - 80,000
22   7   Luke Hallinan - 33,000
22   8   Christopher Xenofontos - 140,000
22   9   David Barnes - 25,500

, but the board ran out and it was like we were at a roulette wheel. No more Betts.

I salute you.

Geoffroy Buffetrille was in fact 38th, so we're hand for hand now, with a vigilant Chris watching for the last unfortunate non-paid member of the tournament to hit the rail.

With 38 players remaining, that means that we're pretty much at bubble time here.   

Voila the payouts:

1   -   £32,028
2   -   £18,133
3   -   £11,333
4   -   £7,884
5   -   £6,405
6   -   £4,434
7   -   £3,449
8   -   £2,463
9   -   £1,971
10   -   £1,379
11   -   £1,379
12   -   £1,379
13   -   £1,379
14   -   £985
15   -   £985
16   -   £985
17   -   £985
18   -   £985
19- 27       -      £600
28-36   -   £450

james williams update please?

Just raised from the big blind after Pete Linton and Harry Dunnell flat called the 3k preflop.  Only Dunnell on the button made the call of 13k total. 
Flop:   Williams instantly bet out 18k, and was rewarded with a pass at which he said something like, "Sort it out," and grinningly showed .  Which was good anyway, apparently.