On a board showing , Danny Ryan passed the honors to his lone opponent on the button who fired a barely-above-pot-sized bet of 3,450. Ryan tanked for quite some time, thinking out loud and telling his opponent, "You might have queen-jack or king-jack; something like that." After a minute or so passed, he finally made up his mind and said, "This might be a bad call, but..." and proceeded to toss his chips into the middle.
His opponent then tabled for trip fours and Danny rapped the table, before sending his cards into the muck. "Smelled like jack-queen," Ryan said after the hand.
Sitting with just over 11,000 in chips, 2007 Aussie Millions Main Event Champ Alex Kostritsyn came over the top of an opponent's 800 pre-flop raise, making it a total of 2,250 to go. Both blinds folded and the action returned to Alex's heads-up opponent who three-bet the pot, upping the ante to 7,000.
"Are you gonna show?" Kostritsyn asked as he considered his decision. His opponent answered by shaking his head "no." "You look like you have a monster," Alex added, before eventually handing his cards over to the dealer. A moment later, he reached into the muck and dug his cards out, revealing a pocket pair of tens.
Kostritsyn was left with 8,900 in chips after the hand.
Newly minted Team Poker Stars Pro Chad Brown appears to be our current chip leader, with 46,500. If he maintains it, we'll have an eerie repeat of last year's action, where Brown finished up Day 1b of the '07 EPT Grand Final as the chip leader.
On a flop of the heads-up action was checked to Josh "JJProdigy" Field who put 1,225 into the middle. His opponent then check-raised to 3,700, leaving himself around 5,000 behind. Field quickly declared that he was putting his opponent all-in.
His opponent went into the tank in a decision for his tournament life. He eventually made the call and tabled - well behind Field's for trip nines.
The turn was the leaving Field's opponent with only two cards in the deck to stay alive in the tournament. Miraculously the fell to the gasps of Field and his entourage as the 18,000 pot was shipped to his opponent in unfortunate circumstances.
However Field is still going strong with over 32,000 chips.
Michael Keiner, a 2007 WSOP bracelet winner, has just been eliminated from the tournament by Anders Wijk. Keiner, short-stacked, shoved pre-flop holding and was given action from Wijk who made the call with .
Keiner's king-queen high led through the turn as the board filled out , but the on the river gave Wijk all the help he needed to take down the pot and send Keiner home near the end of Round 5.
The 842 players that entered the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Grand Final traveled from near and far to take part in the tour's premier event. A record 48 countries are represented in the tournament, with the most delegates hailing from United States (138), followed by France (105) and the UK (67).
Visit our photo gallery to view a full-size version of the pie chart, courtesy of PokerStars.com. *Note -- Graph does not include countries with fewer than 10 players.