PokerStars EPT Monte Carlo: Day 1B - At A Glance

[danafish]

tx dana and snoopy, i notice richard didn't make it, any further info on james and jan always appreciated, tx again for the sterling work...

Mr Lee Nelson is alive, well and definitely still in - I actually have an awesome photo of him but Snoopy's wandered off with the camera. Neverends. Coming soon...

Jan's original seat is empty - this doesn't necessarily mean the worst has happened, but I'm afraid I can't see him anywhere currently so it is a definite possibility.

[Djinn]

I was just passing table Brown/Negreanu/Testud/Iremark (depending on your nationality) when this hand kicked off...

Chad Brown raised to 500 utg (blinds still 100/200), called in late position by Mats Iremark and in the big blind by Paul Testud.
Flop:    Testud checks, Brown bets 700, called by Iremark, but that gets rid of Testud.
Turn:   Both players check.
River:    Now Chad Brown checks and then thinks about the 5k bet at him.  For a while.  But not an unreasonable length of time given that his stack couldn't have been more than c.22k.  He passes, and the chips are pushed over to the tricky Swede who is so unexpressive in victory and defeat that he appears botoxed. 

Pictured:  Testud and Brown.  Neither of them won this hand.

[danafish]

Sander Lylloff bets 1800 on a board and Mateyboys x 2 call him.

The river is the housealicious - Mr Lylloffnow bets, er, a considerable sum - sorry, there was some shouting from another table and my attention wandered, but when I turned back to Table Lylloff, both Mateyboys had folded, letting Mr Lylloff rake in the chunky pot.

[danafish]

Mr Maz Nawab, wandering back in from his dinner break, has been "up and down, up and down," which is obviously better than just down but not as good as just up. Currently in possession of about 12k.

[Djinn]

Potlet between Patrick Bueno and Dan Didech (Dcal Zone) filled up the last few minutes before the short break that just happened.  I caught this from Bueno betting 800 on a board, only to face a check-raise from Dcal.  The 2k lay there for a minute, while it was the American doing the talking, unexpectedly:  "You got a Queen?  Full house?" as he toyed with the 11,100 he had left behind.  Bueno called.  The river brought the and another suspiciousish 2k bet out from Didech.  Bueno passed.  Most of the room had already left, though (isn't there something a little sad about winning when no one can see?)

[danafish]

Vicky Coren and fellow Brit Talal Shakerchi both check a board (I think they check it - I arrived as the river was just about to be dealt). Looked like there had been a bit of betting at some point before the turn, though.

The River - - and Vicky, first to act, considers it for some time. Eventually she leans forward and says, "Do you have the , is that in your hand?" Very sensibly replies Talal, "I can't tell you that." She checks, and Talal turns over . Vicky picks up her cards, , and shakes them slowly as if admonishing them for not being the winning hand. It's all very good-natured though, as evidenced by all the smileyness etc below:

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[snoopy1239]

Feast your eyes on these, obtaining as the other side of the cardroom returned from their dinner break.

Faraz Jaka -- 8,700
Manuel Palanca -- 7,900
Alex Kravchenko -- 11,375
Tim Vance -- 15,500
Joe Hachem -- 23,00
Florian Langmann -- 28,500
Glen Chorny -- 25,175
Juha Helppi -- 4,125
Gus Hansen -- 27,825
Eric Larcheveque -- 13,350
Andrew Feldman -- 30,500
Maz Nawab -- 8,775
Ludovic Lacay -- 26,000
Alfonso Amendola -- 29,625
Neil Channing -- 15,700
Paul Bracken -- 28,000
Jeff Garza -- 22,125
Surinder Sunar -- 18,225
Oscar Blanco -- 20,450
Paul Steve-Ambrose -- 20,600
Kasey Castle -- 28,000
Richard Ashby -- 14,975
Joseph Mouawad -- 30,550
Paul Leckey -- 6,175
Mats Iremark -- 28,750
Chad Brown -- 58,025
Paul Testud -- 15,200
Daniel Negreanu -- 26,600
Yuri Kerzhapkin -- 53,725

[Djinn]

Hi! 

I have an quite unusual request for you guys today.
Any chance you could take some kind of closeup pic of some chips?   would like to know how close those replica sets are to the real thing:)

Ok, shall do, although a curious thing - yesterday the 5k chips were white, and today they are a sort of beigey brown colour. Either somebody spilled their coffee on them, or, more likely, they are today using for the tournament the chips that they were yesterday using in the sit n gos. So bear in mind that there may indeed be more than one design of Official Pokerstars EPT Tournament Chips, if that's what you have...

Have you guys been able to get a deacent pic for me yet? 

Sorry - hang on just a little bit more and both sets of chips will be coming.  We are still suffering one-camera three-fallible-updaters syndrome. 

Ta-Da!  I am not actually allowed to touch any chips, but this player had the neatest stack giving excellent examples of all colours:

(OK a not-so excellent) 1 brown 5k chip
7 blue 1k chips
4 red 500 chips
13 black 100 chips
12 green 25 chips    Altogether now his stack is.......?

[snoopy1239]

any chance we can get updates on faraz jaka (aka the-toilet 0):



tytytyty

With an interesting dress sense and blonde highlights in his hair, I knew Faraz would be relatively easy to find, and that proved to be the case as he was unearthed on Table Lee Nelson at the very far end of the room. Unfortunately, my arrival seemed to have jinxed him, as I popped my beady eyes around the corner just in time to see poor Faraz being dealt a good old fashion rogering by New Zealand maestro and former Aussie Millions Champ Lee Nelson. It all went crazy on a Flop, a flurry of raises seeing Lee Nelson make the final push with . Faraz made, what may have been a near obligatory call in an already meaty pot with , but was ultimately unable to survive the and... wait for it.... River.

When I first saw the photo of Faraz, I thought he might be the more vocal type who wears his heart firmly on his sleeve, but, unexpectedly, he remained cool in defeat and took it like a man. Lee Nelson, meanwhile, who even rose from his seat on the Turn and consequently interrupted his own massage, seemed truly relieved to have survived his all-in, and, along with his masseuse (Lee must have been paying well) was all smiles by the time he raked in the pot.

[snoopy1239]

Not since Waterloo have France experienced such a disaster, but I'm saddened to report that Fabrice Soullier has gone the same way as Napoleon and finally bitten the dust. Shortstacked and in desperate need of a double up, Fabrice made his move with K-Q, but went hurtling into an A-K which called quicker than a hiccup. A T-7-8-3-3 rainbow Flop was no good and the Frenchman was gone.

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Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier is OUT. Jacks v Kings. What a fish, he'll never win anything.

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All-in with against on a Flop (I shall assume the chips went in on the Flop), Ludovic Lacay managed to hit a on the River to take a most welcome of pots.

[Djinn]

Something for a few of you now (OK, mullacott and the guy who wins the hand I'm about to describe, mainly...)

Let me start with this photo - this is Winning Matey at the end of the hand (not wearing a green feathery hat - just an awkwardly placed plant:



I arrived at the table as the eventual victor was dwelling in front of a flop considering calling a 5,500 bet.  He did.
Turn:    WinnerMatey checked again, and this time faced something in the region of 7k.  Back to this guy who called, leaving himself 6,500, which garnered a few raised eyebrows.
River:   Now check once again.  A reluctant check behind as the Loser shows down .... and is shown the victorious, and clearly surprising to the loser, ...


Now here's the photo of the player who lost the hand, on the left of Neil Channing.  The reason I didn't crop Channing out of this hand which has nothing to do with him, is twofold.  One, he said, "I am photogenic," or something along those lines, and Two, I'd counted his stack at 25,200, when it was actually 25,100 and he said, "Do you think that would be good enough for Bloomberg?"



Finally, the card protector of the rivered player - is he perhaps the one earlier referred to with the 'toilet' nickname?? 

[danafish]

Chip counts from your friendly neighbourhood chipcounter - me!

Manuel Palanca - 9k
Danny "Benjo Has Banned Me From Calling Him To The D-Ry" Ryan - 35k
Alex Kravchenko - 8k
William Martin - 35k
Richard Ashby - er, just 850
Sander Lylloff - less than 5k, including the loss of 800 I saw him raise utg only to lay it down when Mateyboy two to his left makes it 1700 more
Paul Testud - 12.5k
Benoit Gariepy - 45k
Daniel Mangas - 25k
Eric Larcheveque - 11.5k
Mickey Wernick - was 16k before an astounding hand to be documented below - said he during my chipcounting, "I've come back from the dead," where The Dead turned out to be 6k or so
Marc Godwin - 36k
Vicky Coren - 14k
Ed De Haas - 23.5k
Thomas Dunwoodie, still doing good-y - 23k
Lee Nelson - 16k
Michael Martin - 38k
Surinder Sunar - 14k
Neil Channing - "24,350 to be accurate"
Joe Hachem - his hand was in the way but I reckon probably in the region of 20k
"Texas" Alfonso Amendola 30k
Ludovic Lacay - 25k
Ram Vaswani - 23k

[danafish]

Yes, and that extraordinary Mickey Wernick hand.

I arrive just in time to see a flop, and to see that Mr Trousers Of The Day (who I have discovered is called Michiel Brummelhuis) has bet 1600 and that a Mateyboy to Mickey's immediate right has made it 4k. Mickey sighs and checks his hole cards. THEY'RE ACES!!! Sorry, got a bit excited there, but at this point Roberto Romanello taps Mickey on the shoulder. "I'm just in a hand here," says Mickey. Roberto comes over to where I'm standing. "Didn't realise he was in a hand there."

MICKEY FOLDS!!!

Ahem. Says Roberto, "Did you see his pass?!?! He passed Aces!!!" Mr Brummelhuis-Trousers calls. Mickey gets up and comes over to us. "I passed Aces. I trap-checked and the guy bet, but then the other guy went over the top." Meanwhile Mr Brummelhuis and Mr Mateyboy check down the turn and the river.

Michiel Brummelhuis - J-J
Mateyboy - 8-T

An almighty sigh from Mickey...

[snoopy1239]

Manuel (I genuinely can't stop thinking about Faulty Towers whenever I write that name) has doubled up to 19k. He raised to 1k from the cut-off with Tens before smooth calling an extra 1.2k re-raise from the small blind. The small blind led out on the 8-9-J Flop, Manuel pushed all-in and Mateyboy called with Kings. Manuel Turned a Seven for the straight and proceeded to jump onto the table swinging his trousers over his head whilst chanting "I am a golden God, I am a golden God!". Okay, maybe that last bit was made up.

[danafish]

Look at this! The awesome people at Pokerstars.com made a pie chart of all the nationalities representin' here this week! Cool.