Alain Roy and Team Pokerstars Pro Ruben Visser are seated on table 9 and both of them have very impressive stacks. We just caught them both fighting it out on a flop of . Roy bet 5,700 in the hi-jack and Visser called in the cut-off. Fabrizio Cataldi thought for a long time in the big blind before folding and then the dealer gave us on the turn. Roy bet 11,500 and Visser decided the turn was as far as he was willing to go and ditched his hand.
Fabrizio Cataldi is also on the Visser/Roy table and has the third biggest chip stack behind the aforementioned two. Cataldi has just dipped down to 140,000 chips though after calling the 18,100 all-in of Arnaud Lombard.
A four-way raised pot saw a flop of which Almira Skripchenko checked, Gerasimos Deres fired out 6,300, Kalle Niemi folded and Cristiano Viali made a big raise to 18,000. Deres thought for a minute and then moved all in, Viali rechecked his cards and called.
Deres:
Viali:
The turn paired the board, as did the river meaning Viali's ace high was still good and he doubled to about 120,000.
The board was reading and there was a bet of 15,200 in front of Carter Phillips but Lorenzo Sabato had reraised to set the former EPT Barcelona champion all-in. Phillips thought for several minutes, he still had over 100,000 remaining but was covered, so clearly this was a big decision. Finally the clock was called and a member of staff came over to warn Phillips he had a minute to make up his mind.
"It's ok," said Phillips, "I call."
Phillips:
Sabato:
It was looking disastrous for Phillips but the turn improved him to two pair yet he still needed one of the remaining jacks or kings to avoid being eliminated. The then appeared on the river and Sabato looked disgusted and had to leave the table for a minute.
As Phillips scooped the 260,000 chip pot, Tom MacDonald sitting next to him said, "Absolutely snapping him off there, there's so many draws."
"It's the only value hand he can have...I didn't think he 3-bet eights," replied Phillips.
"Sick get there though..."
"It's probably the sickest live suckout I've ever had," agreed the American.
Team Pokerstars Pro and EPT Vienna runner-up Martin Hruby has been eliminated. His went head to head with the of Arturo Pierantoni and the board did not offer any salvation for Hruby.
Nicolas Yunis made it a solid 3,900 to play from early position and there was a cold call before Matteo Grimaldi three-bet to 11,000 from the button. Yunis four-bet to 23,000 and the cold caller folded. Grimaldi was sat with 34,000 and he made the call and the move somewhat startled everyone including Yunis.
Flop:
Yunis shrugged his shoulders and moved enough chips over the line to commit Grimaldi and everyone was expecting the call when he mucked.
Yes, he put 50% of his stack into the pot pre flop and folded to a c-bet on the flop.
We have already lost over one hundred players in the first two levels. It seems everywhere you look there is an all-in confrontation between Italians.
Alberto Musini now has 145,000 chips after surviving one of those confrontations against Leonardo Patacconi. We say surviving but he did have the pre flop nuts - pocket aces. Patacconi had ace-king and the board did provide the miracle combo he was looking for.