Over half the field dropped in just eight hours of play yesterday. The surviving 287 players will be reconvening to whittle themselves down yet further in the grand surroundings of Dublin's Citywest resort. The golfing-minded may have woken up at the crack of dawn to take advantage of the facilities here, but chip leaders Bradley Verburg, Maurice Harmon and Andrew Pantling will have been wise to maximise rest and come back ready for another long day's play.
Those three might have topped the 100,000 chip mark, but there are many others nipping at their heels, and many top European players like Julian Thew, Paul Testud and Dave Penly are well stacked going into the second day. Last year's winner Neil Channing is also still in, although short stacked and trying to make it two-for-two. U.S. guest Phil Laak has also chipped up - will he be the first American to take the Irish title?
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To be fair, it's not always a simple choice, and no one chooses the former willingly. Nevertheless, as expected, shorter stacks are dropping left and right -- among them Pat Vickers, Sean Donaghy and Stephan Gerin.
Moments ago, Eugen Gout made quite a laydown, potentially avoiding the same result. He raised to 4,800 preflop from early position (for just over 20,000). Action passed to Dave Penly on the button, who calmly moved in his two highest denomination stacks - covering Gout. Back over to him, Gout tanked for quite a while until another player prompted him to make a choice.
"It's quite a decision," said Gout, before folding face up. Penly didn't show.
As expected, the shorter stacks have been wasting absolutely no time in getting their chips in the middle in an effort to double up or bust out.
Among those busted so far: Rinaldo Aquino and Barny Boatman.
Shaun Craig tried it on against Jack Hinchey too -- Craig raised in mid-position and then shoved to a reraise from Hinchey in the big blind. After a considerable dwell, Hinchey decided to let it go.
"Queens?" asked a tablemate. "Not that high," replied Hinchey, "But I did have a pair..."
Big stack William Kassouf raised under the gun, but was left with a decision when Gert Cooman moved all in to his immediate left. It folded back around to Kassouf, who dwelled up for a remarkable amount of time given that it was only another 6,000 to him. He assessed the pot size -- also around 6,000 -- and eventually folded.
We arrived at the table to see Patrick Mettler all in with against Julian Thew's and pulling a face. As the board was dealt out, Thew explained to us that Joe Ruddy had folded , which meant that he was drawing incredibly thin, and, by the by, Charlie Ciresi had folded pocket tens. No Thew-favoring miracle materialized, and Mettler duly doubled up.
Tough break for Tom Kitt just now. Nursing a 12,000 stack, he was in a great spot after raising all in preflop over the top of Geraldine Nolan, who had raised under the gun. She made the call pretty quickly holding . Kitt flipped over and said, "The king balls!" for some reason.
Still in good shape on the flop, he murmured, "No diamond," on the turn. His order went unheard as the on the river four-flushed him from the tournament.
Joe Ruddy just showed us how to hold. He called Gerard Paoli's shove on a flop with a set of fives. Paoli had for the flush draw, but the turn and river were . After the diamond-free cards, Paoli was sent to the rail.
Short stacked James Lowrey was microstacked (2,425) by the time he pushed from under the gun. Button Paul O'Connor called him, as did big blind Daniel Kannerstedt. Both checked it down until the board read . Suddenly perking up on the river, Kannerstedt bet out 2,500, and was called by O'Connor. They both had paired their nine, but O'Connor's pipped Kannerstedt's . Both had just rivered a bigger pair than Lowrey, however, and he joined the growing number of first level bust-outs.