Pokerstars.com EPT London: Day 2 - At A Glance

[NoflopsHomer]

Sorrel Mizzi has lost a load of his chips after getting it all-in against Ramin Henke's Aces with Ace-Queen. The board never offered 'Imperium' much, coming knocking his stack under 100k and forcing him to rebuild.

[JungleCat03]

Hand for hand...you know what that means guys.

 Pull on your baggy trousers and tell people they can't make tangible contact with this.



Yes, we're on that dreaded bubble. Things could turn nasty!


Kathy Liebert is recognized as perhaps the foremost female tournament player in the world with 4.5 million in winnings.

That recognition couldn't prevent her exit at this critical stage though, shoving for 25k with pocket Jacks only to run into Ace Queen which spiked to send her to the rail penniless...

She was philosophical in defeat though.

"I kind of wanted the action, even though we're on the bubble. It didn't work out but that's the way it goes sometimes!"

Kathy is, in my opinion an excellent ambassador for poker. All her talking is done on the table, she always seems humble despite her success and doesn't suffer from the ego problems afflicting many of the top players in the game.

So she goes out but she'll be back soon, racking up another big score and we'll be cheering her on when she does!

[NoflopsHomer]

While we're on the bubble, all media (apart from Stars) are banned from the area. We'll get info as soon as we can get back in.

[JungleCat03]

Even though we have been prevented getting too close to the players during this delicate period of the tournament, here's a little taster of the tension afflicting the players at the moment.

Huseyin Yilmaz with close to 200k rummages in his coat nervously while a doe-eyed Rousso fixates on the latest flop with her 110k or so....

[NoflopsHomer]

Players are on a 45 minute dinner break because Hafiz Khan is our bubble he had A-Q against pocket J-J. Hit the Ace but his opponent caught a jack on the turn. And with that, we're now on a dinner break.

*********************45 minute dinner break*************************

[JungleCat03]

We're back and already there's been some action with five combatants falling soon after the resumption.

This is typical of the period post bubble. All those shortstacks who had been protecting themselves from going busto are now more willing to gamble, and we should expect carnage for the first level as a host of s**t or bust moves are either pulled off with aplomb or spell the end of their architect's tournaments.

Buckle up guys, like this guy...

Click to see full-size image.

...we're in for a bumpy ride!

[NoflopsHomer]

A few chip counts:

Michael Tureniec -- 40k
David Beyamine -- 280k
Beth Shak -- 110k
Ian Frazer -- 190k
Georges Moussa -- 20k
Michael Martin -- 130k
Rene Mouritsen -- 50k
Anthony Lellouche -- 90k
Priyan De Mel -- 120k
Johannes Strassman -- 310k
Eric Liu -- 200k
Scotty Nguyen -- 95k

[NoflopsHomer]

Arnaud Mattern's exit can be summed up by Benyamine's giant stack. In a Gallic civil war Arnaud raised with A-9 and bet 20k on the 9-7-2 board before setting Benyamine in on the 7 turn for his remaining 60k. Benyamine quickly called with 8-7 and although Mattern made it through the bubble, he went out against Benyamine shortly after the break with Q-Q being cracked by Benyamine's 4-4.

Winamax teammate Anthony Lellouche did have over 150k but lost out when Priyan Del Mel flopped a straight on a 9-7-5 board and all the money went in on the 5 turn where Lellouche had 7-2 but couldn't house up on the river.

Alexia Portal is doing better though, she just doubled up with 5-5 vs A-Q.

[JungleCat03]

This stage of the tournament is a mixture of the shortstacks either combusting or trying to spin up their bowl of rice into a worthwhile paella and the big stacks cautiously, and in some cases, less cautiously, picking at each other with varying degrees of aggression.

Two examples of this here.

Blinds: 2k/4k/400

First Sorel Mizzi bumps it up to 12k from UTG, only to find Scotty Nguyen re-raising another 15k from the cut-off...

With 128k back and out of position to the multi bracelet winning player, Sorel decided to fold, despite the small raise, perhaps sensing this would mean his stack would be up for grabs if he continued...


Next up, another young aggressive player, the big stacked Johannes Strassmann raised it up to 11k, finding resistance this time in the form of Winamax's Anthony Lellouche, who re-popped to 50,000 this time.

Strassmann likes to interrogate players he is in hands with and he did just this here, telling Lellouche..."you are just gambling I know! I don't believe you have a hand..."

Eventually, despite his distrust, he laid down his hand, enabling the Frenchman to sweep up his chips, although Strassmann was eyeballing him very suspiciously...


Judging when to re-steal and how much to re-steal by has to be one of the most difficult skills in tournament poker with a fine line between genius plays and just bleeding chips away...Nguyen and Lellouche seemed to be skilled in the art though...

[JungleCat03]

Some chip counts:-

David Benyamine - 270k
Ian Frazer - 170k
Beth Shak - 75k
Vanessa Rousso - 135k
Sorel Mizzi - 128k
Priyan Demel - 125k

[NoflopsHomer]

Michael Martin has remaining fairly static on around 100k for the last few hours, he raised from utg to 10.5k and got a call from Ian Frazer from the big blind. The pair checked down the board where Frazer's pipped Martin's . Martin rolled his eyes at me in a 'one of those days' way.

Anthony Lellouche has bounced back up to 300k after eliminating one player who pushed after the Frenchman had looked at one card (an ace) and raised from the cutoff. Lellouche then looked at the other card and it was a second ace.

"I felt really bad for him, he thought I was slowrolling but I really wasn't!"

[JungleCat03]

Max Payne

Vanessa Rousso and Max Pescatori just played out a pot in the region of the 300k mark...

The pre and flop action wasn't seen but Vanessa got her not inconsiderable stack in on an Ace turn, and Max gave her action, holding A-J...

Rousso had the Italian trussed up and bound like a turkey at christmas though, holding A-K and she looked likely to move into close to the chip lead.

That is until a cruel Jack spiked on the river to shatter her ambitions of challenging for the title. Meanwhile the fortunate bearded Italian moves into a dominant position in the tournament...

It's a bad time for the girls with Vicky Coren also busting soon after...

Vicky raised to 17k preflop, only to face the busy Frenchman Anthony Lellouche re-raising another 40k from the small blind.

Vicky called the big re-raise quickly and the two went heads up to an 8 high flop...

Lellouche led out for 55k and Vicky now shoved the rest of her stack in, another 30k on top or so.

Lellouche had an easy call, and as Vicky showed down pocket Tens, Lellouche flipped up pocket Kings and suddenly Coren was in big trouble...

The turn K ended any faint hopes of an outdraw and Lellouche is now MASSIVE as we unfortunately lose the former EPT winner.

[NoflopsHomer]

Justin Truesdell -- 98,000



Antony Lellouche -- 435k, chip leader



David Benyamine -- 320k

[NoflopsHomer]

Lellouche has eliminated another player, we believe to be Priyan De Mel. De Mel was holding Q-Q, Lellouche had T-9 and a sticky icky T-9-7-J-4 board got put out in the Frenchman's favour. He finished 2nd in San Remo last year, can he go one better?

And as that all happened, were down to just 32 players and finishing for the night. Tomorrow we'll be playing down to the final table from 1.30pm. See you tomorrow.

[JungleCat03]

Scotty Nugyen just lost a big flip to leave him on life support, his A-Q unable to hit versus his opponent's pocket fives...he was unable to spike though and although he's made it through to Day 3 he'll have his work cut out if he is to mount a serious challenge now...

And we have now reached 32 players left, meaning the day draws to a premature halt and we have a better idea of who the champion will be.

Benyamine, Strassmann and Lellouche appear to be the men to catch at the moment, with Max Pescatori also in good shape as the tournament approaches its sizzling denouement.

Well that's it from us for today guys.

It's been another cracker of a day with every level crammed full of exhilarating rollercoaster poker but the curtain has come down on today's play so thanks for joining us and we hope to see you back at 1.30pm tomorrow for the run in to the final.

With £1,000,000 to the winner, the remaining players will be battling tooth and nail FTW so see you then but for now