Pokerstars.com EPT Dortmund: Day 3 - At a glance

[Djinn]

As those of you watching the Eptlive feed will know, play has kicked off post dinner with plenty of aggression.  Johannes Strassmann has had a pretty good day,


Dan Carter, whose tightness so far has been somewhat remarkable, just raised preflop and found Manfred Hammer shoving the lot in - 80k or so.  Now Andreas Gulunay shoves over the top!  A real decision for Carter?  Not apparently - he chucks whatever it was he'd raised with and let Gulunay's spike some Jacks against Manfred Hammer's .

This is the prize bracket we're looking at for those eliminated in the last stages today:

9    € 52,200
10    € 52,200
11    € 41,100
12    € 41,100
13    € 31,700
14    € 31,700

So M. Hammer takes €31andabit, as did Jioí Kulhánek who finished in 14th place.

[Djinn]

Dan on Dan!

Button Mike McDonald looks to have had a go at the Dans' blinds - Ryan thought for a minute and then pushed all in - the Carter moved in over the top!  I was just about to write that that was a little unfortunate for Dan #1, as their hands were..

vs

But then here's what happened:

Flop:
Turn: 
River:

"Sick," said Dan, now supershort on 58k.

[JungleCat03]

Poor Dan.

Due to restrictions on the press, I couldn't get too close to the table during Dan's final moments but here he is shortly after his exit, shaking hands and preparing to leave the table.



I got a super-quick chat with him as he de-miked, and went to pick up his not inconsiderable but probably should be much larger pay check of €41,100 for his 12th place finish.

"Bad luck Dan"

"They don't always hold up..." he told me sounding understandably a little dejected...


Hopefully once he's had time to reflect he'll be proud of his great performance in a very strong field. All his fans including us are.

Here he is de-miking.

[Djinn]

I was just estimating Tyler Friedrich's chip stack at around 100k after he'd embarked on a hand against Diego Perez Marco, when he called a bet on a flop of:
, bringing the .  A very slow and deliberate check, a very slow and deliberate bet by Marco of 30k, a pretty quick check-raise all in from Friedrich and an instacall!

Friedrich showed: 
Marco showed: 

There couldn't have been a more perfect action turn card than that.  It's like today wasn't meant to go on until 3am or something.

So Tyler Friedrich finishes in 11th place, winning €41,100....

[JungleCat03]

An interesting hand pans out between Daniel Ryan and Johannes Strassman.

Strassman raised only to run into a re-raise from Daniel Ryan.

He considered this for a short time....BEFORE PUSHING!

Ryan had a tough decision on his hands and went deep into the tank considering his options.

After some time of Ryan leaning back in his chair and shuffling his chips, Strassman began to talk with him. "If I were you, in your position I would fold. I want you on the final table as you are my friend!

Take your time, take an hour if you like!"

"I don't need that long buddy!" said Ryan, laughing. Ultimately though, he folded saying "I hope you don't have tens or nines!"

He revealed that he had passed A-J, whilst Johannes simply told him "I wasn't bluffing!"


Meanwhile Bulgarian player (not Russian as earlier claimed) Alexander Milanov is seen passing K-6 on an turn to the aggressive German Andreas Gulunay's allin bet. Passing two pair to an aggressive player? hmmm...but was it correct???

Unfortunately for him, it wasn't as Milanov showed for a mere top pair...

He'll never be able to afford that new Harley if he keeps laying down hands like that!

[Djinn]

A recap of all the money finishers from yesterday and the first part of today:

15    Aniol Alcaraz    
16    Marco Liesy    
17    Raul Paez    
18    Peyman Mohammadzadeh    
19    Jan Heitmann    
20    Christopher Rossiter    
21    Marcel Cesarz    
22    Marcel Luske    
23    Hugo Felix    
24    Syikrai Istafan    
25    Andreas Sarling    
26    Sebastian Till    
27    Bernhard Damnik    
28    Mario Kuhl    
29    Brandon Schaefer    
30    Chabot Cyrille    
31    Steve Jelinek    
32    Manfred Bass    
33    Thor Hansen    
34    Thomas Petersen    
35    Alexander Clauss    
36    Ramzi Jelassi    
37    Russell Carson    
38    Richard Fohrenbach    
39    Stefan Rotach    
40    Edwin Tournier    

[Djinn]

Danny Ryan gets it all in pre, calling for his whole stack in the blind, it looked like, as Johannes Strassmann makes a very large move on the button - he was probably a lot less than delighted when he found Ryan calling with leaving his looking in poor shape.  They stood up and...

Flop: 

Turn:    A very slight frown and ensuing calm descent from the TV table as the River: comes down signalling a very similar demise to that Dan Carter suffered earlier.  He finishes on the Final Table Bubble Bubble (they are consolidating to one table until Nine become Eight which will return to be filmed tomorrow), winning € 52,200.

[Djinn]

Strassmann calls a Mike McDonald raise in the blind, and bets out 50k on a flop of - called by McDonald.
Turn: check-check
River:   Now check to McDonald who bets 85,000...

"Do you want me to call?"  Only a slothlike blink from Timex in response.  Johannes Strassmann chews gum with furious intensity for about 30 seconds before mucking his cards.

[JungleCat03]

Here are the chip counts of the last 9 players vying to be the Dortmund EPT champion.

Michael McDonald 752,000
Diego Perez Marco 834,000
Thibaut Durand 157,000
Johannes Strassmann 716,000
Christian Harder 358,000
Andreas Gulunay 455,000
Torsten Haase 383,000
Claudio Rinaldi 280,000
Alexander Milanov 90,000

[JungleCat03]

Alexander Milanov moves allin and Strausmann isolates with a big reraise that leaves him heads up with the shortstacked Milanov.

Johannes shows J-J and Milanov the dominated 4-4.

This could be it folks...the crowds are fixated with the nerve jangling devlopments...



The flop comes ....

.... ..... .... ..... ...!

No shocks, no suprises. Strausmann continues to chew the gum he has been masticating (you heard) all day as he shakes 9th place finisher Milanov's hand.

Alexander Milanov is OUT, eliminated in 9th position, winning €52,200 for his troubles and immediately moves off to find the nearest Harley Davison bike salesman to spend his winnings. Probably.


Anyway, this final piece of drama means play has now terminated for the day, with our final 8 players determined.

It has been a frenetic day full of action, and tomorrow's final promises yet more excitement.

[Djinn]

So here are the stats being displayed on our screen for the final lineup -

Michael McDonald -- 862,000
Johannes Strassmann -- 827,000
Diego Perez Marco -- 744,000
Andreas Gulunay -- 460,000
Torsten Haase -- 369,000
Christian Harder -- 339,000
Claudio Rinaldi -- 276,000
Thibaut Durand -- 148,000

[JungleCat03]

That's it folks!

Thanks for joining us for today's developments. The last eight players will reconvene at the same time, same place tomorrow (that's 15:00 from the Hohensyburg Casino, Dortmund) as they compete to see who will finally take down the mouth-watering first prize of €933,000 and win the much coveted accolade of the Dortmund EPT title.


One last report from the front lines of the Gummi / press war. A temporary truce was called today as both gummi s and press were absorbed by the electric pace the poker moved at.

The ceasefire came to a swift end in dramatic fashion though. One solitary act of violent defiance brought the fragile truce between gummi bears and press crashing down and re-ignited the war.

We've had Hitler.... Poll pot..... Stalin.... Mussolini...a new name has been added to this list of evil, bloodthirsty leaders.



Behold Jen the Gummi gobbler!


That's it for now. Seeyou back here tomorrow.

 

[Djinn]

Yes well, an accurate predicter of the unpredictable I might not be, but I can tell you what I am - knackered.

The pace today was crazy, but the finalists now get a night off to rest or go and play in their hotel lobby like sickos, whatever seems most appropriate.

I am flying back to the UK tomorrow, but you'll be in the capable paws of the Junglecat, and if they drop you there's always the live feed.

Good luck everyone I saw play well over the last three days (which includes most of the final table)...