David Eldar raised to a barely-more-than-minimum 25,000 and it folded right around to Ovidiu Balaj in the big blind, who reraised to 72,000. Eldar promptly made it 225,000 to go, his hand over his mouth.
Balaj now dwelled up, looking most consternated -- which turned out to be some rather excellent play-acting, as he called or pushed all in (he had roughly 225,000 in total) and they were on their backs.
Eldar:
Balaj:
Board: a queen-free
Balaj doubles up to 450,000, while Eldar, with a wry smile, drops to 564,000.
Kati Jerney: 360,000
Dragan Galic: 1,025,000
Kalle Niemi: 150,000
Ovidiu Balaj: 225,000
Pietro Sibione: 330,000
David Eldar: 660,000
Luigi Abiusi: 260,000
Gianni Giaroni: 935,000
Table 3
Giuseppe Argento: 265,000
Alex Fitzgerald: 225,000
Dennis Bejedal: 590,000
Julien Legros: 180,000
William Reynolds: 1,055,000
Stefan Raffay: 550,000
Pierre Neuville: 480,000
Sami Kelopuro: 280,000
Dragan Galic is not enjoying Day 4 nearly as much as he enjoyed the first three days of this tournament. He had Gianni Giaroni all in on a board of . Each player showed down ace-queen, but Giaroni held the . He caught running hearts, the and the , to make a heart flush at Galic's expense for a total of 434,000 chips. That blow knocked Galic out of the chip lead and to less than 1 million in chips for the first time in a while.
Remember how we said things are going Bill Reynolds' way? He opened another pot preflop for 28,000 and found one caller before Pietro Capriotti reraised all in. Reynolds then reraised all in himself, because he had picked up . Once the player in-between Reynolds and Capriotti got out of the way, Capriotti showed down . He was unable to come up with a hand that could overtake Reynolds' kings as the board ran out . He exits the tournament with €21,700 in prize money.
It's a brutal exit for Sebastien Bidenger. He was all in preflop with pocket queens against David Eldar's . If an ace had hit the board, it would have been frustrating for Bidenger but palatable. Instead, Bidenger lost when the board came to make a ten-high straight for Eldar. Bidenger's exit will be softened by €21,700 in prize money.
Things are going Bill Reynolds' way today. After being one river card from elimination on Day 2, Reynolds is steaming towards the chip lead. He recently eliminated Vedat Akdemir in 28th place, all in preflop with against Akdemir's . The board did not improve Akdemir's eights. He walks away with €21,700.
Meanwhile we are down to 27, as Eduardo Burgio open-shoved for a ten-big-blinds-sized 130,000 or so and got looked up by Bill Reynolds and his shiny shiny shades.
Short-stacked Alexander Fitzgerald is getting antsy -- he open-shoved two hands in a row from the cutoff and hijack respectively, but as yet no-one has seemed very keen to call him.
Vedat Akdemir raised to 30,000 under the gun, only for Bill Reynolds to make it an even 100,000 from the button.
Akdemir, who had only 155,000 behind, disappeared into the tank for a bit. Both he and Reynolds briefly turned their attention to Doron Tourgman's entertaining double-up on the feature table, and this seemed to break the spell for Akdemir; he quickly folded, showing the .
Doron Tourgman just got back a few of the chips that Constant Rijkenberg took from him earlier in the day after his pocket jacks held off Rijkenberg's feisty jack-ten.
All of the money found its way into the middle before the flop and Tourgman's jacks looked practically unbeatable against Rijkenberg's ... that is, until the flop came , giving the Dutchman both straight and flush draws. The fell on the turn giving Constant one additional out for trips, but the river blanked () and Tourgman secured the double-up.
"What is this shit?" snapped Tourgman as he raked in his newfound chips.