Former EPT Prague winner Salvatore Bonavena got unlucky, then lucky, then had to settle.
He pushed all in and saw Yury Kerzhapkin move all in behind him from the small blind.
Bonavena:
Kerzhapkin:
The dream flop of came along but before Bonavena could celebrate the appeared on the turn meaning the pot would be split. The was meaningless and Kerzhapkin and Bonavena shook hands over the chopped pot.
In a multi-way limped pot, four players saw a flop of . The blinds checked, and Salim Ghozali led out with an overbet of 11,000. In position, Maurizio Agrello made the call, the small blind folded, and Francesco Cirianni went into the tank as the last player to act. It would be another two or three minutes before the short-stacked Cirianni announced an all in for just over 30,000 total. Ghozali didn't take long to call, and Agrello came right along as well to put an increasingly large pot in the middle of the table.
The turn came the scary , and Ghozali checked. Agrello quickly announced an all in, and Ghozali slammed his cards into the muck. Cirianni was now at risk against Agrello, and he would soon see that he was drawing dead:
Cirianni:
Agrello:
The river is irrelevant (the if you're scoring at home), and Cirianni's elimination moves Agrello all the way up to about 215,000.
Bit of a cold deck for Viktoria Szilasi as she bet out 13,500 on the turn of an board. Nick Schulman raised to 31,500 and after a few moments Szilasi three-bet all in to cover him. Schulman called and they were on their back.
Szilasi: for a flopped full house
Schulman: for a turned, bigger full house
River:
The extremely fortunate Schulman doubled to 225,000; Szilasi meanwhile was crippled to 35,000.
Isabelle Mercier has had a perfect start after her table move, she managed to double up plus eliminate a short stack when her held against and on a board. She's up to about 120,000.
Coming back from break, we're conspicuously absent one Kevin MacPhee. A quick ask around his table tells us that MacPhee got his chips in good with on a . His opponent was drawing slim with for a huge pot, but MacPhee was unable to fade the six outer, ending his day.
In related news, Nicolo Calia was also eliminated just before the break.
One player who decided to take a shortcut through the press room on his way outside for the break was Derek Lerner. Normally this sort of behaviour would be met with outrage from the media, but as Lerner told us how he doubled up we didn't mind so much.
Turns out he raised under the gun and got a call to see a flop with two diamonds on. The chips went in and Lerner's pocket aces were well ahead of his opponent's ; the rockets held up to double Lerner to 64,000.