In theory, at least... there are bags packed with chips ready for the stacking, and they're trickling towards the tables. Daniel Alaei leads the field of 37, but there's not a lot of easy money in this €25,000 deepstack event and he'll have his work cut out to stay in front.
Florian Langmann and Betrand 'ElkY' Grospellier (wishing for a second High Roller win) are in the 200,000s now and with the blinds starting at 800/1,600 ante 200 there's enough play to keep this as interesting as it was yesterday.
Straight away Juha Helppi gets a boost to an even healthier stack courtesy of a threeway all in. Helppi raised to 4k, and found short stacks Shaun Deeb and Kirill Rabcov both moving all in. He called immediately, as you do with . Deeb held and Rabcov . The board came out giving the Finn the nut flush for good measure.
Bad news for fans of glittery Bertrand Grospellier - a hand against Tony G saw him drop in chips in dramatic fashion.
There was a bit of action on the flop, but it's on the river where it got interesting. The board was . Tony G checked, button Grospellier bet 22,200. Tony G quickly raised to 75,000 and after just a brief think Grospellier made the call. Tony G showed , and ElkY showed just a hint of irritation in the manner in which he flicked over his hand, so that just the landed upright.
"Queen-king?" queried Tony G.
In response, he was shown the for the flopped straight. He got a helpful. "You should have got it in on the flop," from his defeater. Tony G did admit, "I was lucky the King came."
Luke Schwartz found a spot to get his 36k stack in just now, shoving over an under the gun Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott raise to 5,300. Big blind Schwartz had to wait half a minute before being called, as Devilfish muttered under his breath something that sounded like, "I don't like that too much." In any case, he did make the call.
"I only went in because I thought you were weak," admitted Schwartz, flipping . Devilfish had . "I can still hit," reminded Schwartz.
He did hit the flop - - but an on the turn meant a quick "Good game" handshake.
We're down to just two Finns in the High Rollers event now, after Thomas Wahlroos (who'd been playing a very small stack for quite a while) took his shot at a double-up racing vs. the of Lev Myrmsky all in preflop. Myrmsky hit and a slightly-deflated (and therefore quieter) Wahlroos made his way out of the tournament area.
Ilari Sahamies showed up about halfway through the first level, having made it one table closer to the final while not actually present. They've broken one table already as they're down to 32.
Lev Myrmsky is proving a bit of a wild card here in the High Rollers event, and there's a lot that's somewhat eccentric about the now well-stacked player. He just tangled with Florian Langmann, calling the German's preflop reraise out of the small blind (11,600, up from Myrmsky's original 4,900).
The flop: . Langmann bet out 19k, and a split second later Myrmsky announced, "All in." This was quite some bet - his stack is now 240k and Langmann only just had him covered. This could have been the biggest pot of the tournament so far if he'd called...but he didn't. While he thought about it, however, Myrmsky stood up, then sat down, then got out a small book and proceeded to read it until the hand was over.
He's also wearing a shirt which is covered in gems on the front, and on the back says, "What defines me is not what defines you. What drives me is not what drives you. I love what you do not love. I am me and you are you." Food for thought.
Tony G is now way in front of the players on his table, with three times the nearest stack:
Alexander Kuzmin - 70k
Johan van Til - 68k
Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier - 98k
Chris Ferguson - 74k
Eric Haik - 76k
David Steicke - 65k
Tony G - 222k
Alexandre Gomes - 52k