We walked up to the table to see a bunch of chips involved in preflop action, though the betting process wasn't exactly clear. What we could tell was that Dragan Jovanovic had 4,000 chips out in front of him, and Shane "Shaniac" Schleger had 10,000 for himself. Jovanovic matched the extra amount, and the two men went off to the flop.
It came , and Schleger led out with 11,500 chips. As quick as a blink, Jovanovic open-mucked his , drawing a double-take from Shaniac. "Wow... wow. You're too good," he said, flashing his as he pulled in the smaller-than-he'd-hoped pot.
Therese Demeulemeestere raised in the cutoff and then called the push from Nikolai Senninger on the button. Senninger sighed with the inevitability of it all, and they flipped their cards.
Senninger:
Demeulemeestere:
Flop: - actually some opportunity for Senninger there
Turn: now giving Senninger a monster draw
River:
Nope.
Senninger, who finalled at EPT London, heads home early this time.
Just before the break, Glo had a chat with yet another gregarious Frenchman. This time, it was Antony Lellouche, and he's got an interesting justification for his admittedly poor play in the early stages. We think he was playing just fine, but check out what he had to say about his game.
Who is going to blink first? Usually, when Dario Minieri is in a big hand, it's not going to be him. But Anas Tadini, the other sizable stack at his table, decided to test that theory.
Flop:
Minieri bet out 2,100, and Tadini called. Standard so far.
Turn: Dario bet 7,000, and again Anas made the call. Still nothing unusual.
River: Apparently the action card both players were waiting for. Minieri checked. Tadini bet 7,000. And then it got interesting. Minieri made it 15,000. Tadini bumped the bet to 35,000. Dario counted out his entire stack, looked like he might push, and then announced fold. Tadini slammed his cards down on the felt: .
"I almost push, I almost push," said Minieri. But Dario hadn't exactly folded a monster either. He laughed and tabled . "Nine-high I call, I swear."
Martins Adeniya, who's had rather a difficult day, checked a flop in the big blind position, and the action moved over to David Cohen in the hijack who bet. Adeniya very quickly and very purposefully moved his whole, not very large, stack across the line. After a few moments Cohen folded, and Adeniya stays in the game on a slightly shaky 16,000 or so.
Our 768 runners have come from 41 countries around the world to be here for EPT Deauville. It's no surprise to find France at the head of the list of countries represented, and here's the rest of the breakdown if you're scoring at home.
France - 481
Russia - 32
Italy - 28
UK - 22
Netherlands - 18
Belgium - 16
Spain - 15
Finland - 11
Portugal - 11
Romania - 11
Germany - 10
USA - 10
Morocco - 9
Ukraine - 9
Canada - 8
Denmark - 8
Sweden - 7
Hungary - 6
Lebanon - 6
Austria - 5
Norway - 5
Switzerland - 5
Czech Republic - 4
Ireland - 4
Israel - 4
Bulgaria - 3
China - 3
Egypt - 2
Kazakhstan - 2
Slovakia - 2
Armenia - 1
Belarus - 1
Brazil - 1
Columbia - 1
Dominican Republic - 1
Greece - 1
Iran - 1
Korea - 1
Mexico - 1
Poland - 1
Turkey - 1
With around 16,000 in the pot by the turn of the board, Aurelien Guiglini checked out of the big blind position, before calling 6,000 from Jeremy Amsellem.
They both went on to check the river and Guiglini turned over for a bunch of draws that had turned into a pair of sixes, and started cursing. Amsellem's for top pair was good to take the pot, and he remained perfectly sanguine behind his bandit-style face scarf as he raked in the chips.