So far, the British contingent are in various moods. Toby Lewis and Dan Carter have admitted to being a little worse for wear after enjoying much of a Vilamoura's nightlife while Paul Foltyn managed to see none of it. The latter somehow missing last night's welcome party by falling asleep at 7pm after a very early flight from Manchester and then waking up at 3am, having missed all the fun.
However all of them are keen golfers and one suspects they're equally excited about hitting the fairways later this week as they are for playing this tournament. The British had two winners on the EPT last year in Jake Cody (Deauville) and Liv Boeree (San Remo) and will be hoping for another winner here.
John Duthie, Team Pokerstars Pro and all-round pillar of the EPT, seems to have started off well but just lost a reasonable pot building his young American-accented tablemate's chip pillars instead...
Under the gun raiser made it 300 to go, and Duthie alone on the button made the call. They saw a flop which brought an instant bet out of 425 from UTG, called almost as swiftly by Duthie. The turn saw UTG fire another nonchalant 825, again called. The river saw yet another speedy bet-out from UTG, this time 1,225 - at this point Duthie reached for red 1k chips and threw out four of them. His opponent made a face, but made the call with while Duthie could only flash the and muck, saying, intriguingly, "One all..." to which UTGPotWinner replied, "One all...?" History already, and only a level in, it appears.
We only caught the very tail end of the hand, but it was enough to witness JP Kelly turning over for the second nuts on the river of a board, and his horrified opponent quietly standing up and leaving the table to go vent somewhere else. Kelly looked as though he was trying not to let his feelings about this hand show on his face, but either way, he increased his stack to over 40,000.
This is looking to be not only an incredibly impressive tournament, but also a relatively speedy one. TD Thomas Kremser has told us that we will be playing a very manageable eight levels today and there will be no dinner break, meaning that any players who happen to survive Day 1a will be spat out into the various restaurants and bars of Vilamoura at around 9pm.
A boost to young Dutch player Paul Berende courtesy of his which saw a heads up flop with his right-hand-side neighbour, who bet out around 700, in no way shifting Berende as the flop cards were ... The fell on the turn, and again Berende called a bet out of 1,200. The river brought the and a check - after a very brief consider Berende checked behind finding his pair of Aces good against his opponent's .
This table, incidentally, is a lively one, featuring as it does (as well as Berende) the following lineup:
Bryn Kenney (37,500)
Antoine Amourette (27,500)
Laurence Houghton (32,000)
Ludovic Lacay (26,200)
Marcin Horecki (30,000)
The poker world has seen a huge increase in aggressive play over the last couple of years and if you wanted to pinpoint someone at the very forefront at this change, certainly in Europe, then Dario Minieri would be your man. He's always playing a large pot, just picking up around 5,000 with a bet of 3,700 on the turn of a board.
Minieri first burst onto the poker scene when he placed 3rd in Baden back in EPT Season 3. His super-aggressive preflop style at the time was something other people weren't ready for at the time as very few people were being as active as he was back then.
Minieri hit further 3rd places in the EPT's at San Remo and Warsaw in the spring and autumn of 2008 and a much wanted bracelet win at the WSOP in between these. The interesting thing about this though is that the game has caught up, to a certain degree, with his style and results have not been quite as great as his purple patch year of 2008. However the young Italian is perhaps no longer as rough and raw as he was a few years ago, he has been forced to adapt his game to stay ahead of the curb.
One thing remains the same though, his style demands, in fact, craves a big stack to work with. So Minieri will always be in big pots early, finishing late with a huge stack or early with no stack, grinding is not something he does.
All that we heard of the conversation were the following tantalizing snippets:
Antonio Esfandiari: "Until I give up or throw up."
Other Player: "The meat part should be as big as this [indicated his curled forefinger]."
Obviously this only made us wish that we'd heard the whole thing, but by lurking and eavesdropping we managed to establish that we had witnessed some kind of formative prop bet involving shrimp. Though nothing firm had been established by the time we left the table, we will of course let you know if a large quantity of shrimp should appear in the tournament area.
Ahh, that young scallywag James Dempsey, he and Annette Obrestad haven't been playing too many pots together but Dempsey had check-called a bet of 800 on a flop before both players checked the turn.
The river was the and Dempsey now fired 2,200, Obrestad thought about it enough that she counted out the 2,200 but then mucked and said, "Nice hand."
![[user46298]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
flop which brought an instant bet out of 425 from UTG, called almost as swiftly by Duthie. The 
turn saw UTG fire another nonchalant 825, again called. The river 
saw yet another speedy bet-out from UTG, this time 1,225 - at this point Duthie reached for red 1k chips and threw out four of them. His opponent made a face, but made the call with 
while Duthie could only flash the 
and muck, saying, intriguingly, "One all..." to which UTGPotWinner replied, "One all...?" History already, and only a level in, it appears.
for the second nuts on the river of a 
board, and his horrified opponent quietly standing up and leaving the table to go vent somewhere else. Kelly looked as though he was trying not to let his feelings about this hand show on his face, but either way, he increased his stack to over 40,000.
which saw a heads up flop with his right-hand-side neighbour, who bet out around 700, in no way shifting Berende as the flop cards were 
... The 
fell on the turn, and again Berende called a bet out of 1,200. The river brought the 
.
board.
flop before both players checked the 
for a cheeky bluff.