We only caught the hand from the turn, but we suspect that that's when it got really fun anyway.
Three players were still in and the board read . Kevin MacPhee bet out 4,000 which got rid of one of his opponents. The other raised to 11,000, though, and MacPhee called.
Heads up to the river, and this time it was MacPhee's opponent who did the betting - a very hefty 18,500. MacPhee had barely 10,000 more than that in his stack but flat-called nevertheless, and was swiftly rewarded when his opponent showed , nowhere near the for trips in MacPhee's hand.
"Nice bluff catcher," said a tablemate in broken English, but the sentiment was clear. MacPhee is back up to around 80,000 now.
Once leading the field, Matt Widdoes now has to deal with a more modestly above average stack. The culprit: Richard Gryko. A pot peppered with yellow 5k chips (around 30-35k) had built around a board of . The table had started to gather a ring of spectators, and when the TD joined them to give Widdoes one minute to act, so did we...
Gryko had moved all in on the river for 17,675 and Widdoes was looking pained. Finally he said, "If you got it, you got it, good hand..." and threw in the chips. Gryko showed for 'it.'
"Good hand," he said again as his opponent stacked up c.70,000 and he dropped to 45,000.
Sorel Mizzi found himself wallowing around the 12-14,000 chip mark for a large percentage of today's play but he back to almost where he started, with 28,200 chips.
The action folded around to the small blind, who made a raise of 2.5x the big blind, or 1,000 to you and me. Mizzi made the call so it was heads up to the flop. The small blind checked and Mizzi checked behind him.
Turn: - The small blind made a bet of 1,200, a bet that the on-form Canadian quickly called.
River: - Being called on the turn seemed to slow down the small blind who went into checking mode again. Mizzi was having none of it though and made a bet that totalled 5,200, enough to buy him the pot
Nicolas Levi has just picked up some much needed chips to boost his dwindling stack to around the 10,000 mark.
The action folded around to the hijack who promptly opened with a raise to 1,025 and both the cutoff and the button decided to part company with the same amount. Levi, seated in the small blind, counted his chips and moved all in for a total of 7,225.
The hijack quickly folded, as did the cutoff as calling would have crippled him but the button, with a stack of 69,000 thought for at least a minute before mucking his hand.
Hanging on by his nails earlier, Pavel Prekop recently shored up his hold with a double of his 2,850 remaining stack. This went in preflop in early position, with what turned out to be , and button Mihai Manole made the call. Manole's were ahead until the flop where they abruptly became Great Danes, and on the river they were dead as a doornail. Prekop, however, survived into the second half of Level 6.
Fernando Brito, the man who currently tops the EPT leaderboard, has picked up a much-needed double up to 22,000. The chips found their way into the pot on the flop.
Yann Brosolo had a singularly unpleasant day at the felt here in Prague, dropping down to single figures (x 1,000, obviously) early in the day, and although he made a recovery he never got above his starting stack. This bad day has now come to a merciful end. Brosolo raised in the cutoff and then shoved to a reraise from the gent on the button. Bit of a roller coaster ride on the board, but ultimately the best hand won and the Frenchman will not be repeating last year's good run this time around.
A drop to a short stack for Branden Rupp just before dinner, which led to a premature exit to the buffet (or, as Kevin MacPhee suggested, to, "Punch a wall.")
Ramon Cserei moved all in preflop with (it wasn't just a plain shove, there were raises, but we only arrived as they were turning their hands over). Cserei had 11,125 at the start of the hand, and Rupp under 20,000. Rupp's was ahead, but straight away the flop brought the single overcard: . The turn and river () changed nothing and Rupp muttered an exasperated, "You're too good," as he lost most of his stack and walked off to recover elsewhere.
Your current chip leader is one Jeff Sarwer, whom you may remember from such EPT productions as Warsaw 2009 (10th place), Vilamoura 2009 (third place) and the EPT Berlin High Roller event (runner up).