France 1, Italy 0. Stefano Fiore (Italy) was all in with pocket jacks against [Removed:133] (France). Cournut held and trailed the entire way until he spiked a Broadway straight on the river. [Removed:133] increased his stack to 54,000.
Busting out on the bubble is one of the worst feelings in tournament poker. Busting out when you have A-K versus A-K suited is even more brutal. I really feel bad for Thomas Vestergaard, who takes home the unwanted distinction of being the Bubble Boy at the PokerStars.com EPT Budapest.
First up, a classic coin-flip between the all-in Janek Schleicher holding , and Nicolo Calia holding . A complete absence of kings or aces on the board, and Schleicher doubled up. They shook hands, and we were still bubbling.
On the other table, it looked a lot like it was going to be a split pot, with Thomas Vestergaard all in with against Christophe Wemelbeke's . But oh dear...
Board:
Thus Thomas Vestergaard is our unfortunate bubble boy, and play continues with the air noticeably less tense.
Another player who finds himself short-stacked on the bubble is Sorel Mizzi. He raised to 12,500 preflop, and then announced, "All in" after Pasquale Braco reraised to 43,000 from the button. After some considerable pause for thought, Braco called. He was ahead, and although the board was a terrifying one, he managed to dodge all of Mizzi's outs and doubled up to around 240,000. Mizzi, meanwhile, is down to just 36,000.
Kara Scott has not been shy about getting her chips in the middle, happily open-shoving in late position, but she has yet to receive any callers. She's not the shortest stack on her table, either -- Paul Testud is firmly in the danger zone with less than 20,000.
There are 59 players remaining. The top 56 get paid prize money. Three unlucky souls will go home with nothing. At this point of the tournament, we're expecting a slowdown in the action as the bubble looms.
The plan is to play two more levels this evening unless we get down to 32 players...whichever comes first.