Pascal Perrault raised to 12,000 from the cutoff, leaving himself 32,000 behind -- but passed face up when Joe Ruddy raised to 30,000. An exasperated but amused Ruddy showed him .
...You wait half a level and two come along at once.
The first to be dealt and announced featured a tense but ahead preflop Graham Masters with vs. Andrew Pantling's . Those held.
But then Ronald O'Hara had taken the plunge on another table, this time running his into the dominating of Andreas Kyprianou. Kyprianou flopped a , and by the turn O'Hara was drawing dead but gamely shook his table's hands as muted celebration perked up everywhere.
With just 16 minutes left of play, the traditional post-bubble mayhem hasn't really got time to get into full swing. But there's consolation for whoever, having made it this far, doesn't get to Day 3 in the form of €3,500.
A little controversy here, and a sad end for Packie Quinn, the shortest stack in the room throughout the bubble period.
Joe Fleming raised to 11,000 on the cutoff and Quinn called all in for last 4,300 from the button. Former big stack Maurice Harmon fancied his chances, and pushed from the small blind for a total of 16,700. Assuming a call, Quinn turned over his cards -- . It is true that Fleming was intending to call the 5,700 difference, and eventually did -- but not before the floor had been called over, and Quinn's hand was declared dead. "I'm sorry, it's the rules," said the TD. Various players and even the dealer appealed the decision, but it stood and Quinn's hand stayed dead.
As it turned out though, he would have lost to Harmon -- possibly scant compensation though for seeing a board without at least a chance of staying in.
Harmon:
Fleming:
Board:
A double up for Harmon, and a dejected exit for Quinn.
Kara Scott eliminated Carsten Joh reraising preflop after Joh went all in. This caused stress for a player in later position, who umm-ed and ahh-ed and eventually folded jacks (so he said). Kara flipped , ahead of Joh's and so it stayed, although the player that folded jacks went into agonies as the board came out .
Roar Wang got his short stack in preflop with , only to find a happy caller in Eddie Kavanagh whose were and stayed ahead, sending Wang out of the tournament with just around his buy-in refunded. Still, out 20 minutes earlier and he would have got zilch.
Cheerful young Norwegian Lasse Lien (who also happened to be the shortest stack still in as the clock ticked down its final minutes,) got it all in when it passed to him on the small blind. An autoshove with , the big blind held and busted him right at the end of the day's play. His table seemed to feel genuinely sorry for the likeable chap, and there were smiles and "Well played"s all round.
The 287 Day 2 starters have now been whittled down to a mere 64, and we are well into the money. However there is a big difference between the €3,500 on offer for 63rd place and the eye-watering €600,000 for first, so expect a very interesting Day 3, when we will playing right down to final table.
Andrew Pantling, one of the big stacks for the whole of today, appears to be our current chip leader on around 300,000. Full chip counts will appear on PokerNews.com overnight and we will be back at 2pm local time (GMT+1) to get down to business.