Pokerstars.com EPT Barcelona - Day 2 - At A Glance

[JungleCat03]

Ramzi Jellasi still in the hunt with 100k to his name.

Here is the Swedish pro...



And didn't manage to get a snap but the news of Stephen Chidwick is that he is on 120k at the moment which is an improvement from dinner break so he is on the way up...

[Djinn]

Players approaching the bubble go through periods of what can only be described as Intense Patience.  I just watched a hand which started in summer, and the leaves were brown and dropping by the time it reached its conclusion.  Even though your curiosity may be piqued and then left unsatisfied, here it is, as it took 20 minutes to watch:

Johansen Wagner raises to 7,500 preflop, called by small blind Salvatore Pengue.
Flop:   Dwell. Check.  Dwell.  Check.
Turn: Check.  Dwell.  Wagner places hands under chin, rests head on hands, stares from behind shades as dark as night.  A couple of other players at the table stand, stretch, stare into the middle distance, but show no interest in the proceedings speeding up.  He bets 15k at last, three reluctant-looking yellow chips.  A dwell surpassing that one comes from Pengue, but he makes the call.
River:    A slow check, and I think Wagner might have actually fallen asleep.  The dealer looks almost entreatingly at the clock, the faces of the opponents in the hands, back to the clock.  Wagner has actually somewhere along the line announced all in.  Pengue thinks, and thinks.  To be fair, this is now his tournament on the line, and having spent a valuable 20 minutes of his life on this hand he is obviously reluctant to give it up.  But he does, and Wagner rakes in the pot - I have to go and sit down.

[Djinn]

Short stack Stavros Kalfas shoved in the cutoff for 20,400, but probably wasn't expecting serious interest from both blinds... first off, small blind Peter Nordin moved in a stack of yellows, enough to put the only other player still in the hand to the test for his whole stack too.  A genuine decision, one that required standing up and looking pained, followed for big blind Benjamin Stark.  He eventually decided against it, and folded his face up!
Kalfas: 
Nordin:    (when this hand went over some excited French railers transmitted the happy news to those without press passes behind the rail:  "Roi et Valet!  Roi et Valet!"

The board emerged:  and Kalfas got the double through while the one really hurt by this hand was Stark, now short and on the bubble and ruing his decision.

[JungleCat03]

With 69 players now remaining, the play has slowed to a crawl with time wasting, needless dwelling and all sorts of stalling tactics being employed as the dreaded bubble approaches.

There's been lots of dwelling up and slow play on Michael Kiener's table. The german is just about handling it with his 60k stack, but his next door neighbour appears to be close to a nervous breakdown...



"Just hurry up for god's sake!!!!"

Here's some of the players who don't look in danger of missing out on the money...

Stephen Chidwick, one of the chip leaders at this point with close to 200k...



Maz Nawab, who picked up the blinds with a raise JUST as I got to his table...

The english player is doing just dandy at the moment with 160,000 chips to his name...



Recent Belgium bracelet winner, Davidi Kitai, who has 140,000.

[JungleCat03]

Mark Flowers, with over 150k is lin excellent shape as the run in to the title continues...



But he should be careful of this chap to his right, the all powerful Sebastian Ruthenberg, yet another bracelet winner and the German has been attacking his tablemates all day with his aggressive play. He has a whopping 250k.

Just to HIS right, Albert Sapiano must be wishing he didn't have two such big stacks in position and you can see the stress on his face, but he is hanging in there with 110k...

[Djinn]

It's been long, but the drop from 65 to 64 was just 11 minutes.  I was not expecting this.  In fact, in the Press Poll on how many minutes the bubble would take to burst, I picked the longest time.  However, Brazilian Felipe Tavares Ramos has the dubious honour of being crowned bubble boy, his AK running into QQ which cemented victory by flopping a Queen.

This means the very next/first player out in the money stage gets a tidy €10,200.

[JungleCat03]

SICK HAND

Thierry Van Der Bergh just shoved when it was folded round to him in the small blind. He had the big blind's remaining 40k covered and must have expected to have picked up the pot 95% of the time.

When the BB wakes up with Q-Q though, he's going nowhere (unless he's tightend) so he made the insta-call and found Van Der Bergh with the expected random hand, J-3 in this case.

With no overcards the BB must have been lookign forward to a 85k double through and when the board fell BLANK BLANK BLANK that looked a virtual inevitable.

A 3 on the turn opened a crack in the window of opportunity, but there was just a sliver of darkness at the end of the tunnel of double up light.

The absolutely sick three on the river though turned the lights out completely for Van Der Bergh's unfortunate victim though, completing the runner runner outdraw and sending him to the rail with a genuine bad beat story to tell...

[JungleCat03]

Ruthenberg isn't the only German player wielding an impressive stack now, as Michael Kiener has just doubled through...Aces against T-9.

I joined the hand as all the chips were in the middle of a T high board but when and where they went in was unclear.

What was clear however was that Kiener was now the proud owner of a six figure stack that will make the experienced German a threat to win this EPT...

[Djinn]

Stuart Rutter is one of those to be getting the just-in-the-money €10,200 - finishing 62nd right as I got to the tournament area.  He was both happy and sad - happy to have made the money with what was a pretty short stack - and unhappy that he got it in with A-K after A-2 had raised enough not to fold pre.  Of course, the Deuce came through and he exited stage left where they appear to be paying people in €500 notes immediately.   

[Djinn]

I just found a bit of paper under my laptop with some chicken-scratchy scrawling on it - it's Interesting Hands from Right Before the Bubble.  While slightly out of date, I think they're relevant, as the recipients of chips still have them, and I like the title I was going to give it:

Swedes Mash It Up

While Ramzi Jelassi hasn't had a wavering moment (I eavesdropped on a SikTilt video of his talking about his nice first day, replete with good cards, and second day, what with calling with raggy Aces good against Arnaud) building up to over 135k on the bubble, another young Swede Jonas Molander had an excellent twenty minutes in which he doubled up and then won one of the biggest pots going during that unexpected lull between losing player 77 and player 76.

First up it was David Kruger who doubled him up, raising with and calling his all-in with what turned out to be a victorious .  "I didn't think you had A-K there," admitted Kruger.  "Two hands in a row..."  Fortunate timing, and a nice stack now. 

I bet Asti Ruscalla didn't put him on the hand he had here either:  He called Jonas' raise to 7,500 in the small blind, seeing a flop.  Ruscalla bet out what looked like just 6,500, and Jonas raised him to 16,700.  Call.
Turn:   Both players checked
River:  Check to Jonas who bet 16,900.  After a good think about it, this got called too, and his was good to take down the pot.



NB Pic from yesterday, stacks not accurately represented currently....over 120k

[JungleCat03]

We're about to get the official chip counts, taken at the end of level 16, but I can tell you that Chad Brown is the chip leader at the moment.

Davidi Kitai is in 2nd place with 320k or so, the winamax player well poised for further success after his excellent performance at the world series.

Maz Nawab is also well in the reckoning with 233k, which puts him in the top 10 spots.

[Djinn]

Still in the €10,200 payout bracket, these players are busted:



Not sure what happened to Steve Jelinek, but Casey Kastle had the last of his stack in with Q-T vs. K-Q and Alessandro Lusso got it all.  Possibly this wasn't the crucial hand though as while he walked away figuratively leaning on the strong shoulder of Thomas Kremser he said something like, "I've never been in a hand like that..."

Meanwhile Sheryl Gershon moved her <60k in preflop with , called by neighbour Benjamin Mirsaidi with .

Flop:  ......  ..   Turn and river . 

TABLE BREAK.  Chip counts from right before this flurry of eliminations coming.

[Djinn]

With 26 minutes left to play for the day, five tables remain.

Full chip counts will be done tonight, and posted as soon as they can get from paper to tinternet...

The last big hand I saw involved Asti Ruscalla (top, pictured with his 45k all in the middle) who re-raised the guy in the bottom photo whose name for the moment escapes me but who reminds me of Andy Warhol.

It was 22k more to the other guy, who'd already raised to 20,500, and eventually he called.
"It's a coinflip," he noted as he flipped to Ruscalla's .  "A coinflip."

The coin landed Ruscalla up as he doubled through, even spiking the on the river for emphasis.

[Djinn]

Maria Maceiras hits the rail at the 11th hour (OK the 9th, but that's pretty late)... her Jacks no good against the AA of David Kitai...she does get a reasonable €17,300 for her efforts, however.


Ty benjo.

[JungleCat03]

And the frenetic finish to the day continues apace!

First off, we had Albert Sapiano, who has confounded his critics with a sterling performance that sees him busted just inside the top 50, falling victim to Chad Brown, who flipped his A-K against Albert's pocket Jacks successfully.

Then there was the last remaining lady in the competition, Maria Maceiras, who busted out at the hands of Davidi Kitai, Jacks also signing her death warrant, although she was in worse shape against the Belgium, who held rockets this time to send the popular Spaniard to the rail...

No more honey monster, no more ladies...BYE GUYS!