Pokerstars.com EPT Dortmund: Day2 - At a glance

[Djinn]

Climber of the Day is most probably Jan Heitmann, whose 50k+ started as this little stack you see in this photo.  He was in fact all in for his tournament life in level one, with a stack that couldn't make a raiser pass, so congrats to him.  I think his secret weapon at the table is velour mixed with aggression.

And it's been a good day so far - just saw his cards on their backs and his whole stack in the middle - covered by his opponent Michael Kwiek.  He held and Kwiek .  The board had just finished being dealt as: but I think most of the money went in on the flop which was in all likelihood A-7-7 rather than the other way around.  Jan now on 130,000.

[JungleCat03]

Wow! First one of the favourites in Negreanu falls, now Annette Obrestad has also bitten the dust...

Again, it happened so fast we have few details but she was heard saying "I lost a 40-60 after having a bad day..."


Here is the chilled out tic tac man himself, Rolf Slotboom. Radio Rolf was in full effect as I joined his table...

[Djinn]

Johannes Strassmann, who started the day on 6,100, has now topped the 90k mark.  His chip multiplication skills have not gone unnoticed by his tablemates - one of them said as I walked by, "Hey, you've chipped up nicely from 6k..."
_________________________________

Ramzi Jelassi Vs. Pocket Queens

Ramzi: 1, Queens: 1

The young Swedish player has slowly climbed in chips, peaking just under 50k before the dinner break.  But he only ever seems to play a hand when his opponent has Q-Q.  The first time, he'd raised to 4k under the gun, and Stefan Wrenger re-raised in late position - it was either a minraise or just over, but Jelassi folded and was shown which was probably a fair mile ahead of him...

Then Jacques Zaicik raised to 5k preflop and when it folded round to s.b. Jelassi he thought about it briefly, then announced all in.  It looked like Zaicik with his 42k behind covered him, but it was one of those tournament-life decisions in reality for him.  He went through the wringer visibly - hands all over face, behind head, shrugging and giving every appearance of being in something approaching physical pain. 

"You can beat me," said Zaicik
"I think I can."
"There are very few cards to beat me."  At this point everybody on the table has probably some idea of what he's holding...

"I am going to show you," he says, laying down .
"Very stong fold," offered Ramzi, as deadpan as it is possible to be.

[Djinn]

Dan Carter won a nice pot before the dinner break (although 10 minutes seems enough time for him to reverse and re-reverse his fortune another couple of times)... I caught it from the turn when Dan was betting 4k in position on a board of .  He was called by Anders Henriksson.
River:    Henriksson checked, and then considered the 9k bet at him.  Eventually he called - paying off Dan Carter's for the turned straight.  It looked at that point as though Dan was over 60k.

[Djinn]

This has been the Dinner Break.  In case the Tournament Clock at the top of the page was missed by anyone. 

Here are the counts at the end of the last level, courtesy of Mad at Pokerstars:

Diego Perez Marco    Spain       179,600
Michael McDonald    Canada       175,000
Claudio Rinaldi    Switzerland    168,000
Tyler Friederich    USA       153,000
Michael Kwiek    Unknown       120,000
Marcel Luske    Netherlands    120,000
Jan Heitmann    Germany    114,000
Chabot Cyrille    France       112,000
Aniol Alcaraz    Spain       109,700
Daniel Ryan    USA       97,000
Bernhard Damnik    Germany    96,800
Manfred Bass    Germany       95,000
Stefan Rotach    Switzerland       94,800
Alexandar Milanov    Russia       88,800
Mats Erik Iremark    Sweden       82,000
Daniel Carter    UK       76,000
Peyman Mohammadzadeh    Germany    74,400
Stefan Wrenger    Germany       74,200
Andreas Gülünay    Germany   74,200
Thibaut Durand    France       74,100
Thor Hansen    Norway       74,000
Torsten Haase    Germany    72,000
Raul Paez    Spain       72,000
Marciano Elie    France       69,200
Marco Liesy    Germany    68,000
Christopher Rossiter    UK    63,100
Edwin Tournier    Netherlands    61,600
Daniele Mazzia    Italy       60,200
Anders Henriksson    Sweden       57,000
Johannes Strassmann    Germany       55,800
Mario Kühl    Germany          53,400
Marcus Tandler    Germany        51,000
Richard Fohrenbach    USA           50,100
Reijo Anttila    Finland        45,000
Jacques Zaicik    France           42,600
Hugo Marialva Felix    Portugal           40,600
Katja Thater    Germany        40,400
Szikrai Istvàn    Hungary           40,000
Manfred Hammer    Germany           39,400
Daniel Bolton    Ireland        37,000
Ramzi Jelassi    Sweden           36,900
Simone Gallitti    Italy       36,500
Frank Werder    Germany          34,400
Brandon Schaefer    USA           34,000
Mika Turpeinen    Finland        33,700
Jiri Vacek    Czech Republic           32,800
Christian Harder    USA        32,100
Markus Golser    Austria           31,800
Steve Jelinek    UK        31,400
Nikolas Behling    Germany           29,000
Thomas Petersen    Sweden        28,600
Jordane Beraldin    France           27,100
Daniel Ruiter    Netherlands           27,000
Ville Mattila    Finland           25,800
Ralf Werner    Germany           25,300
Rolf Slotboom    Netherlands           23,800
Henrik Brockmann    Germany           22,500
Pascal Perrault    France           22,200
Gianvalerio Bindi    Italy        22,000
Sebastian Till    Germany           21,300
Jose Maria Puertas Nieto    Spain           21,200
Marc Dötsch    Germany           21,000
Russell Carson    Canada        21,000
Andreas Sarling    Finland          16,000

[JungleCat03]

GUMMI UPDATE!

Clearly the guys working within Gummi intelligence have realised that they are at a mass disadvantage faced with the onslaught of the press as they do not have the same ability to control the media. Plans have clearly been afoot to change this...

I returned from the dinner break to find a crack unit of gummi commandos had comandeered my computer to send out their own propaganda. Although I dispersed the troops in a few mouthfuls, I fear the damage has already been done!

[Djinn]

Jan Heitmann is up over 150k after this hand with a player whom I believe to be Tyler Friederich... Jan raised preflop to 5k, and probably-Friedrich, another very large stack, re-raised to 16,000.  A brief pause.  Then Jan re-re-raised a further 36,000, and was rewarded with a pretty swift fold.  He rubbed salt in by showing the ... but then later admitted that that guy wasn't the one to be messing around with - a tidy player with a dangerous stack.  "I don't want him messing with me, either," he added, however.
______________________________________________________

Katja Thater.... Markus Golser.... Pascal Perrault...

These players are all

[Djinn]

Seeing Double News Now...

Marcel Cesarz on the button re-raised an utg raiser from 5.5k to 25k, and had barely finished stacking those chips when the very next hand Anders Henriksson raised utg to 6.5k.  In came Cesarz on the cutoff now re-raising to 24k and picking up another uncontested stack of blue chips.  Young people these days, no respect for early position...
______________________________________

Manfred Bass took a 50k pot from Marcel Luske a little while ago, betting out 20k on the river with the board standing , which was enough to take it at that point.  Marcel is still chipped up, though, along with Diego Perez Marco, who's up around 190,000.

Other counts:
Steve Jelinek -- 62,000
Dan Carter -- 74,000

______________________________________

[JungleCat03]

Things have become tense now as the end of the day draws closer.


Jen pled with me to snap Brandon Schafer as "he's really short and may go out soon!" He's still hanging on though, albeit to a microstack, his backward facing baseball cap mirroring the defiance in his soul...




Tikay's close personal friend, Peyman Mohammadzade (I can now type that without checking - I swear) is doing fantastically well, holding 130k or so which will put him up with the chip leaders...




Whilst Daniel Negreanu and Annette Obrestad have fallen, another legend of poker in Marcel Luske is prospering, Marcel sitting on a big stack that looks the right side of 100k.

Here he is sharing a quick joke with well groomed tournament director, Thomas Kremser...




One for Jelifish, here is Mr Jelinek, still flying the flag for the UK. He is short-ish, but not yet done with a not-that-comfortable-but-more-comfortable-than-before stack of 55k+...

Well done Steve!



Apologies that he is slightly out of focus but my camera insisted that the fringe of the man between me and Steve was the most important element, and at the moment I tend to lose most of my arguments with the camera...

[JungleCat03]

Overnight Chip leader Frenchman Cyrille Chabot is still in contention, looking to have 120k or so...




Spaniard Aniol Alcaraz is another player who is doing well at this stage with over 100k in chips. As I watch his table he raises twice in quick succession both of which face no resistance, which prompts me to think of the terrible pun that will follow this photo I snapped of him...



There's no escape from Alcaraz!

[Djinn]

Jacques Zaicik is OUT in pretty dramatic circumstances...

With a stack of just under 63k at the beginning of the end of the hand (all will become clear), there was around 30k in the pot with Zaicik staring down young American Christian Harder as he put in a bet of 19,800 on the river...

The board:  .  I don't know how they got the money in and when, just that there was still a lot behind on either side as this bet was made.  Zaicik squirmed a little bit, took enough time that I started to play music in my head (a kind of screensaver for lengthy dwells) but then announced, "All in."

This clearly surprised Harder as he was now the one under pressure - with 44,300 to call it would cripple him if he made the wrong decision... It was like a weird reversal of pressure - now Jacques Zaicik was calmly counting down his stacks while his opponent made a pain face.  He thought for a while, and then said, "I call."

Zaicik showed
Harder showed   and his two pair took the huge pot and eliminated his opponent, who was pretty cheerful about it, talking to some people on the rail - I didn't understand what he was saying, but his body language was universal - "Oops.  That didn't work."

[Djinn]

No sooner do I send the Cat to fill in the gaps in our gallery than the erstwhile short stacks all seem to get a new lease of life...

Brandon Schaefer -- 72,500
Ramzi Jelassi -- 63,000 after successfully racing his against Steve Jelinek's .  "I have been chip leader late in an EPT and lost 5 coinflips and gone out before the final, " [I paraphrase] "Now I am going to win 5 coinflips and win it."
Steve Jelinek -- 42,300   He thinks that if your overcards are going to hit, then the flop's the only place for it.  In this instance it was later.  "If you've missed the  flop, that should be it," he railed at the poker gods, "Then it's not fair any more."

[Djinn]

(re)Introducing...

Mike McDonald... Flying under the radar for most of today, he just leaped to our attention by winning possibly the biggest pot of the tournament, catapulting him into Leader Status with his new 335k stack.

I was up some stairs, down the hall and in a soundproof box when this hand kicked off - I am going to merely repeat what I heard, which is as yet unsubstantiated, which is that he and Mats Iremark got it all in preflop with K-Q and J-J respectively.  Two Queens later and we're down one strong player and up one giant chip leader with no fear whatsoever.  Whoever squeezed who, it turned out to be fireworks...

Chip Leader:

[JungleCat03]

With 44 players left, shortstacked swede Anders Henriksson felt he needed to increase his stack to reasonably have a chance of winning.

His first shove with A-9 ran into the dominant Q-Q of a player who I didn't recognise, and who also had hidden his identifying card from view (curses!)

The gods clearly felt he deserved punishment for this behaviour and rewarded the more easily identifiable Anders with an A-2-4 flop. The 3 on the turn opened up some split possibilities, which arrived when a 5 on the river earned Mr A Nonymous a partial reprieve as they players ended up splitting the pot with a shared wheel straight.


Anders was in no mood to slow down though as he shoved a few hands later with A-7 which was called by another short stack, Stefan Wrenger, who had been dealt



in the form of a pair of bullets.

Lucky in the previous hand, Anders was drawing even thinner this time.

The cards fell ...opening up the possibility of an outdraw, but a on the river ended any hope of that and Anders picked up his coat, shook hands amicably with his table and departed the tournament.


43 players remain...

[Djinn]

With 44 players left, shortstacked swede Anders Henriksson felt he needed to increase his stack to reasonably have a chance of winning.

His first shove with A-9 ran into the dominant Q-Q of a player who I didn't recognise, and who also had hidden his identifying card from view (curses!)

The gods clearly felt he deserved punishment for this behaviour and rewarded the more easily identifiable Anders with an A-2-4 flop. The 3 on the turn opened up some split possibilities, which arrived when a 5 on the river earned Mr A Nonymous a partial reprieve as they players ended up splitting the pot with a shared wheel straight.





43 players remain...

It was Brandon Schaefer's Q-Q...as the Ace came he was probably resigned to losing that one, but when the wheel came and the dealer was chopping the pot, someone on the table said, "Now who's the lucky one?" To which he replied calmly, "I think he's the lucky one."

It appears that that was short lived - however I did manage to snap Anders Henriksson before he made his way railwards...