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No longer participating as the penultimate level of Day 1b draws to a close are Annette Obrestad and Praz Bansi. Neither managed to take off with their stacks as they have often done in the past today. Look for them in the side events, perhaps, or the bustling cash game area.
There was roughly 10,000 in the pot by the 
flop and the gentleman in the cutoff (whose name we can't ascertain owing to the awkwardness of the seating arrangements here, but we can tell you that he is the spitting image of John Duthie circa 1995) checked. On the button, Max Pescatori bet 5,000. Duthie Jr. (not really, but seriously it's a good lookalikey) now check-raised to 12,500, Pescatori went all in for 19,500 total, Baby Duthie called, and they were on their backs.
Pescatori: 
for top pair
Baby Duthie: 
for a flush draw
Turn: not a spade but the 
River: 
- also not a spade
The Italian Pirate pillaged the pot, and doubled up to 50,000. Me hearties.
Ruben Visser opened to 2,000 under the gun but faced a reraise to 10,000 from Tomer Berda. It folded back around to VIsser, and after a moment he folded too with a resigned shrug. He's down to just 13,000 now.
It's that hour when Fabrizio Ascari begins talking, gesturing, insisting he'll tell bloggers what he folded, and oddly making friends with the guy to his left whom we think is Boris Caleta. Some of his limelight-hoggery seems to have rubbed off on Caleta, as this hand demonstrates:
Aaron Brackmann raised preflop to 1,900, called by Ascari on the button, Caleta in the small blind and then pushed over for just 12,000 by the big blind. Brackmann calmly moved all in for 24,000 and sat statue-still while the other two had a grin and a think. Ascari actually folded pretty quickly while Caleta (or his Seat 9 replacement) had a long think before folding 
face up.
Ascari roared with laughter as the short stack raced 
against 
(unsuccessfully) and left. The river card bricked a 
and Ascari picked it up and held it next to his face, giving me a knowing look.
"Yes, I folded pocket threes!" he said.
With the flop reading 
Manig Loeser fired out a substantial looking bet of 6,725 before EPT Snowfest Champion Vladimir Geshkenbein check-raised to 14,500. Loeser thought long and hard before reaching out and reraising to what looked to be 24,000 and change.
But before we could check the size of the bet, Geshkenbein declared, "I don't care how much it is, I'm all-in."
Loeser instantly folded and Geshkenbein turned over the , Loeser shot back, "If the other one was a nine then you still win..."
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
130,000 | 35,000 |
|
77,000 | 21,000 |
|
36,000 | -9,000 |
|
35,500 | 11,000 |
|
27,000 | 2,000 |
|
22,500 | -19,500 |
Emilliano Bono, runner up to Roberto Romanello at EPT Prague, has exited in somewhat mysterious circumstances.
The board read 
when we got there and Roman Herold had announced all in - a sufficient bet to cover Bono. After a little while Bono called all in. Herold turned over 
, and Bono peeked at his hole cards, nodded, mucked, and left.
Herold is up to 95,000.
Davidi Kitai was in the tank staring at a board of 
. In front of him was a bet of 7,000 from Marek Dudkiewicz, and a pot with about 10k already floating in it. Kitai was nursing the same modest stack he's had all day and this bet represented about a quarter of his chips.
Finally after looking a little fraught, and running his hands through his hair, Kitai threw in the call and was shown 
, his 
taking the pot.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
113,000 | |
|
95,000 | 55,000 |
|
47,000 | 29,000 |
|
|
32,000 | 14,800 |
|
15,000 | -13,400 |
|
Busted | |
|
Busted |
PokerStars Team Pro Max Lykov check-raised Christian Knese's flop bet of 2,000 to 4,600 on a board of 
. Knese, a PokerStars online qualifier made the call to see a 
turn where Lykov now fired 5,800 and again was quickly called.
The river was the and Lykov thought for about two minutes before throwing in 25,000 chips to cover Knese's remaining 16,000 stack.
The German player tanked for a little while while Lykov remained completely motionless, finally the qualifier folded.
Lykov over the 60,000 mark.
