Pokerstars.com EPT Dortmund: Day 1b - Interactive

[jslaso]

Be sure to keep us updated on Annette, and if u get a chance, tell her I said good luck.  Also, I look forward to finally being covered by Blonde -- and not a follower -- in Copenhagen next month!

Well done in the Stars Million whilst in the Bahamas btw sir.

Tyty

Will see you there... now you just need to get a follower or two to pester us and presto, your picture too can grace our virtual page...

No worries, my mom will be all over that job

[Djinn]

Here, to help with some parallel imagery from a simpler game - Snakes and Ladders...



Players moving Upwards....

Brandon Schaefer (pictured) -- 32,000
Nicolas Levi -- 40,000



Players sliding Downwards...

Arnaud Mattern (pictured having his arm dislocated by the lovely Suki) -- 6,400
Noah Boeken -- 8,300



Avoiding Landing on Either and Quietly Maintaining Stack...

Thor Hansen

[JungleCat03]

Daniel Negreanu was fortunately in the process of doing a quick audit of his chips as I pass him by so handily, I was able to see he had a tad under 20k.


Stuart Rutter was crippled not long ago. He called me over and I saw straight away things were bad...

"I can't win a race" he said exasperatedly. "Lost a 19k pot AK v QQ..." Poor guy looked so glum. Pretty much every tournament I've done updates on for blonde, Stuart Rutter has had zero luck and, illogical though it is, you can't help but feel semi-responsible. Nontheless, he may be scarf-less today, but he is not yet chip-less, and with 4k it is still possible he could make an exciting comeback, and we'll all be cheering for one of the nice guys of poker if he does. Come on Stu!




A large, stocky semi-mohicanned man was seen belllowing with joy, and deafening all those nearby as he raked in an enormous 30k pot.

How this hand played out I don't know but I could see a board of T-3-4-8-A and the large mohicanned man holding A-J in front of him whilst his somewhat slimmer opponent(who looked like a stick man next to mohican man) had the initially dominating but ultimately vanquished Q-Q sitting in front of him.  It was hard to see where the bulk of the chips went in, but if it was pre-river and that is where the ace fell then Q-Q man was incredibly unlucky to lose such a critical pot.

Sadly both players had disposed of the cards they have been requested to keep near them, so I can't identify them. Mohican man and stick man they will remain for now...

[Djinn]

Elky Fails To Accumulate Really Really Big Stack News Now (courtesy of Marc Convey):

The chip leader (until a minute ago) has been playing fast and loose, raising all the time preflop and generally starting to annoy left-hand-side neighbour Marcel Luske, who was to be heard muttering good-naturedly about how, "I'm not going to let you push me around...steal my blinds...steal their blinds..." etc.

The fateful raise came from Grospellier on the cutoff, and button Luske called the most recent EPT champ - blind - preflop.

The flop came .  Elky bet out 1,300, and the Dutchman, with more words to the effect of, "No more of your irksome table captaincy..." just pushed, for 17k(!).  Elky thought about it for a while before saying that he wasn't prepared to lay that hand down, and called.
Grospellier: 
Luske:

No improvement and he's doubled up a formidable opponent in position on him.  But this is the second knock-back from chip lead to well-above-average - I am sure the young Frenchman can deal with it.

[Djinn]

We move now to Table Serious.  None of these players had above average chips on my last visit, and clearly saw it as no laughing matter.

Ben Grundy



Jan Heitmann and Sigi Stockinger



Serious Cat*



*Not an actual player

[NoflopsHomer]

Serious Cat*



*Not an actual player

Someone stolen his mouse?

[JungleCat03]

At 200 - 400 - 50, stealing and perhaps more importantly re-stealing is a fine art that can augment the better players' stacks considerably. It is a fine line between success and failure though.


First off we had Russell Carson raising to 800 from the hijack, only to be met by Ricardo Sousa (I beleive) re-raising to 2,800 from the button. (re-steal attempt perhaps?)

The curly haired youngster Carson asked Ricardo how much he had back (roughly 15k) before saying quietly "I reriase" and making it an additional 8k...

Sousa's cards hit the muck superquick, indicating a re-steal gone wrong, whilst Carson happily bagan adding the chips to his already bulging 25k stack.

(I told you this re-stealing is complicated...)

Click to see full-size image.

Next there was Michael Durrer raising to 1500 from the hijack and again running into a button raise from the quiet but aggressive Annette Obrestad.

Michael only had about anohter 5k behind so he shoved it in and Annette called very quickly, holding to Michael's dominated .

Both players watched the flop carefully.

.

"I'd like a King please dealer" Michael requested. If only it were that easy...

TURN:

"ooooohhhhhhh" went the assembled rail at the increased threat of an outdraw.

"Deuce deuce deuce" was the high pitched plea from the young Norwegian.

RIVER:

So, no outdraw, no bad beat, jsut another elimination as Michael shook Annette's hand and joined the rail whilst Obrestad's stack has grown to close to 30k and she is becoming an ever-growing threat to take down the competition, even if we are still at a relatively early stage of proceedings.


Dan Negreanu(or Barry Negragnu as our amusing Canadian colleagues in the press room insist on calling him)'s  stack looks to be fluctuating, but not in the right direction as he is now down to 13k or so...


Dan Owston was mid conversation with someone as I went past him, so I didn't get a chance to get an update from him, but I did notice his stack seemed to have dwindled a little to 6400 or so...

[JungleCat03]

Ok, the time has come to give all you guests reading this a gentle and friendly nudge in the right direction.

You like the updates dontcha?



And you like kittens huh?



Well please consider the following VERY carefully then!

Click to see full-size image.

[Djinn]

Who wanted Chip Counts?

Jioí Kulhánek -- 75,000
Marcus Tandler -- 22,150  (pictured in scarf)
Thor Hansen -- 33,000
Daniel Negreanu -- 33,200
Paul Testud -- 13,200
Anthony Lellouche -- 15,000
Benjamin Kang -- 13,000
Markus Golser -- 41,500
Horst Koch -- 15,200
Stefan Rotach -- 14,000
Arnaud Mattern -- 5,650
Annette Obrestad -- 45k+
Marcel Luske -- 57,000
Stuart Rutter -- 6,350
Noah Boeken -- 11,000
Nicolas Levi -- 40,000
Rolf Slotboom -- 18,000
Andreas Hoivold -- 35,000
Dan Carter -- 9,200
Dan Owsten -- 5,900

[Djinn]

Short stacks are taking the all-in challenge at the moment...

It worked out well for Pascal Perrault just now as he raised himself all in (for 10,100) on a flop after his opponent, Nazim Kicik, had bet 3,000.  A bit of a pause before the call, but call he did.
Perrault showed: 
Kicik showed:

A tense but ultimately irrelevant and fell on the turn and river, doubling Triple P up to 23k.
___________________________________

Elsewhere, it folded to supershortstack Thomas Rauhut on the button, and in went his 2,275, with .  I know his hand because the big blind called with and promptly knocked him out.

[Djinn]

Dan Owsten and Nicolas Levi appear to have hit it off despite being table neighbours with a bit of a chip discrepancy between them.  When Dan is on the big blind, there is the inevitable threatening of putting his last chips on the line, but they seem to be having a much better time of it than most of the field in terms of fun.

"Do you have any pepper," came the surreal request from M. Levi...
"What?" I obviously replied.
"Dan says if he needs to sneeze he lays his hand down.  Something he is allergic to would do."
"I will research that.  I have the internet," I replied.
Dan then said, "Oh, I wouldn't look on the internet.  You could find all kinds of things on there," prompting some brief but worrying speculation as to what searching for 'Dan Owsten' could result in...  I haven't had the nerve to try it yet.  It's been a long day.

[Laxie]

Googled it for you.  Nothing to get excited about from what I could see.

Loving the updates though!!!

[JungleCat03]

Well, well, well.

I wandered past Dan Negreanu's table on my travels and noticed he had increased his stack somewhat from earlier, holding over 20k.

Here he is, looking a tad bored and listless, as he always does in my pictures. (When I take my camera off him though, naturally he is a picture of joy and boundless energy - I run so bad!)




However, as I return to the press room, news filtered through to us that Negreanu has increased his stack yet further by winning a monster pot. The news was related to us via our Canadian neighbours in the press room, Owen Laukkanen and Martin Derbyshire (I told them I could turn them into stars in the UK if they revealed salient details of Negreanu's big win - shhhhhhhhh!)

On a flop of , all the chips flew in with Negreanu holding the draw-tastic, flushing and straigtening and his opponent, Iliodors Kamatakis, who allegedly took an age to eventually call, was holding for a set...

The turn was a blank and the river fell as the , leading Iliodors to yell in delight as it was not a club to complete Daniel's flush.

"Yeh I missed my flush....but I've got a straight buddy!" pointed out Negreanu helpfully, as he swept up the latest boost to his chips and dumped Kamatakis out of the competition.

The animated Canadian superstar has now moved ominously up to 40k...


Stu Rutter and Dan Owston are still surviving, albeit on life support.

Stu told me "I just want to make day 2....that will be some achievement!"

[Djinn]

Dan Carter played a hand...

Well, he'd been admittedly "Grinding, just grinding," all day and this is the first hand I'd actually seen him in - and it had only taken nearly 8 levels and two table moves...

Anyway, I caught it from the point where he was betting out 2k from the small blind on a flop.  His late position sole opponent, Russell Carson, thought for a little while, and called.
They both checked the turn.
The river came the ... Carter checked and then considered the 3k bet made by Carson (neither player had over 20k in total).  And considered.  And finally called.
Russell Carson:
Dan Carter: .

[Djinn]

One last hand picked from the ether from the last 6 hands called by TD Thomas Kremser as the clock hit 10:00...

Dan Carter (now up over 42,000) raised pre to 1,700.  Button Annette Obrestad joined battle with a re-raise to 4,450.  Then small blind Vikke Toumaala popped in 12,300 (over half his stack) resulting in a double instapass.

I didn't say it was an exciting hand.

No, wait!  Marc to the rescue again with a BIG hand - Andreas Hoivold is busted with by Nicolas Levi holding ... all in pre.  Never in doubt - only quad Aces for the behatted Frenchman, and a very juicy stack going into day two...