Jesper Hougaard picked up a nice pot when he called a bet from recent EPT San Remo finalist Alexey Rybin on the turn of a board. The river came down the and this time Rybin checked. Hougaard bet 1,600, and thereby elicited an insta-fold from Rybin.
Hougaard looked like he was really enjoying stacking up his chips at the end of the hand, and was up to 33,000 or so.
Not the best of starts for lackadaisically-coiffed Belgian Davidi Kitai.(button) as he called a 750 bet from the gent in the cutoff on a flop.
Mr. Cutoff checked the turn but called the 850 bet from Kitai, and following two checks on the river Kitai discovered that his was not good enough to beat his opponent's . The Belgian dipped below his starting stack and looked a little disgruntled.
There isn't really a single table of terror here today - it's more that every table is upsettingly tough and if perhaps you are a lowly qualifier and you've found yourself at a table that does not feature at least one Team PokerStars Pro and someone else you recognize off TV, you're doing well.
Witness:
- Table Johnny Lodden / Joe Serock / Richard Toth
- Table Luca Pagano / Andre Akkari / Dmitry Stelmak
- Table Marcel Luske / Carter Phillips / Jason Mercier
- Table Katja Thater / Matt Woodward / Bruno Fitoussi
- Table Max Lykov / Markus Golser / Keith "Camel" Hawkins / Kati Jerney
- Table Andy Black / Martin Wendt / Erick Lindgren / John Juanda
Ivan Demidov has just turned up wearing just a dressing gown from his room. We don't know if he lost a prop bet, but he's wearing his Team Pokerstars Pro patches over it so it looks like he's here for the long haul.