We joined his table in the middle of the pre flop action but it appears that Michael Skender had opened with a raise from the hijack position and his opponent three-bet to 6,800. Skender then four-bet to 17,600 and his opponent declared all-in and Skender immediately called.
On your backs gentlemen. Skender showed and his opponent showed . The board didn't help Skender and he lost a significant portion of his stack.
1) There is a €600 (plus one €550 rebuy) tournament starting right now, with half hour levels and 4,000 stacks which will bring an even greater number of players deep into the evening here in the Kursalon than would have been here surviving Day 1A.
2) Pier Paolo Fabretti isn't the only player who looks like he's concentrating more on the shiny wonder of his ipad than the game at hand, but whatever he's got going on that screen is frenetic, brightly coloured, and needs constant hand swiping to keep going. If wagering I would guess Angry Birds might be involved (without of course peering over his shoulder which is not the done thing). At least five others are dividing their attention between this €5k buy-in event, Facebook, small movies and amusing comments from other social media.
3) Side bets and last-longers: although we haven't had concrete proof, word has it that there are quite a few four-figure bets floating around made on which of a group goes deepest in this event. It's a five dayer so potentially that money will be on hold a while.
Ramon Demon Cserei who finished 11th at San Remo in April this year has amassed a chip stack of 140,000 which makes him our new chip leader. We didn't see the hand in question but believe his pocket queens came from behind to beat Marcus Naalden's pocket kings in a 140,000 pot.
We believe that Kevin Stani (big blind) check-called a bet from PokerStars Team Online's Andre Coimbra (under the gun plus one) on the flop; we can verify that Stani definitely check-called a bet from Coimbra on the turn. Stani checked for a third time on the river and this time Coimbra merely checked behind and then mucked to Stani's for a straight draw that had turned into a pair of jacks.
With that, EPT Tallinn champion Stani moved up to around the average, 38,000. Coimbra dropped back to his 30,000 starting stack.
A player who was probably Kent Lundmark has just been eliminated by the Aces-wielding finesse of a player who is definitely Oleksander Vaserfirer. This hand was interesting right from the start, when an early position guy raised to 750 and Vaserfirer on the cutoff made it 2,250. Over to Lundmark on the small blind who fourbet it to 5,350, but only shook off the initial raiser.
He did everything he could to win this one pre, on the flop (with a bet of 6,500) and on the turn (with an all-in move of over 15k). But Vaserfirer calmly and instantly called him down, showing to Lundmark's . As soon as Vaserfirer made the call on the turn, his opponent, drawing dead, was tapping the table and walking off, no need for him to register the river. With that, the Ukrainian player rises to 67,000 in chips - now he's a second big stack on the left of Michael Skender.
Team Pokerstars Pro Arnaud Mattern has been eliminated after his pocket tens came up against a brick wall in the shape of a pair of queens.
Mattern raised from late position and the action folded around the to the big blind who asked how much Mattern had behind him. Mattern moved his hands out of the way to give the big blind an eyeful of his small stack. The big blind then bet 2,525 and Mattern made the call. The flop was all low and the big blind bet 2,950. Mattern made the call leaving about 4,000 behind. the turn was also low and the big blind, who had Mattern covered, declared he was all-in and Mattern made the call.
Mattern realising he was out threw a toy duck at Paul Berende. I assume it was Berende's good luck charm that hadn't brought the Frenchman the luck he needed this time.
You remember that last EPT back in London, all of three weeks back? Of course you do. Two of our finalists from that event are playing today - Portuguese-born Fernando Brito, who now lives in Brazil where he owns several large farms, and Polish national Artur Wasek whom you may also remember from the EPT Berlin final table. Both are doing rather well - somewhat curiously, they are on 47,000 apiece right now, well ahead of the 35,000 average.
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