Jani Sointula raised to 11,500 and Arnaud Mattern reraised to 27,500. Sointula was acting from early-middle position and Mattern in the cutoff seat. Sointula made the call and the two players were off to a flop.
The flop came down 
and Sointula checked. Mattern fired 32,500 and Sointula made the call. The turn then added the 
to the board. Sointula checked again. Mattern fired 62,500 and Sointula mucked, dropping to 170,000. Mattern is up to about 600,000 now.
![[user66118]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
Freddy Deeb raised to 10,500 under the gun, and Ronald Lee called from the next seat over. In the cutoff seat, Nicolas Levi stuck in a squeezy reraise to 38,500 total. Deeb called quickly, and Lee eventually came along as well, three-handed to the flop.
It came 
, and both opponents yielded to a continuation bet of 56,000 from Levi. He scoops that pot, chipping up to about 525,000 in the process.
Matthew Waxman had not-that-many chips left when he got his money in with ace-jack before the flop. Unfortunately for him, Waxman ran right into the ace-king of Hoi Cheung.
The board ran out queen-high with no help for either player, and Cheung's ace-king high is good enough to tally the elimination.
Alex Keating has been chatting it up all day long, right from the get go. He's made most every player he's been seated with laugh and have a good time. Upon starting the tournament, Keating told his table, "Listen, we're all going to cash. Everyone here is going to cash." Although only a couple of them actually made the money, Keating was able to be one of those lucky few.
He's still alive now and moved over to another table including Daniel Steinberg, Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Greg Mueller. The table is situated somewhat in the back corner of the room and there's been plenty of laughter to be had.
When on the bubble, Timoshenko tried to bet Keating that he wouldn't go all in with anything but aces after Keating claimed that he would only stick his money in with one player to go holding the rockets, nothing else. The bet never came to form, but the antics haven't stopped there. Everyone's been clowning with Keating for playing super snug and he's embracing it in full, laughing along with them.
Just recently, Dan Fleyshman limped in from the hijack seat and Keating was up next. He raised to 18,500. He was in the cutoff seat and the instant he stuck in the raise, the entire table burst out in laughter. For some reason, they just find anything Keating does funny, even if he is raising up the action preflop while in the money of the WSOP Europe Main Event. Mueller was on the button and reraised to 43,500 while everyone was laughing, even he couldn't keep a straight face. Action folded around and Mueller won the pot, to which brought some more laughter.
Keating also asked the table that if he makes TV, would they watch. The entire table said they'd surely be watching simply because he would be on TV. While the other three tables all have their snug poker faces on, Keating's table is full of enjoyment and laughter, all having a good time.
Oh the joy and pain of late position - cutoff James Mitchell just sparked off an interesting hand by raising to 12k, which button Viktor Blom upped to 28,500. Now small blind Roland de Wolfe fourbet to 65k (leaving himself 145k behind). It was an instant pass for Mitchell, but the complete opposite for Blom, who counted out both stacks (they were pretty even at this point, Blom covered probably by only a few thousand) and then sat thinking and occasionally conversing sotto voce with de Wolfe.
Minutes ticked by. Blom was jiggling up and down like he was being shaken under the table.
"I can't tell you what I have," said Blom at one point (only a little piece of the quiet chat which went back and forth). "Why not?" was de Wolfe's response.
Finally another player called the clock on Blom, who seemed a little put out (asking for the dastardly clock caller to be identified).
"You show?" he asked de Wolfe.
"You show?" he got in reply.
"No, just you," said Blom. He folded and got his wish - de Wolfe showed 
. Blom requested to rabbit hunt the flop but no joy.
Jean-Paul Seatelli may have started the day with just 61,200, but he'd ground it up with the rest of them, making the money and hovering between 100k and 200k for a couple of hours. Just now he'd dropped to the lower end of this bracket, and was prepared to make a stand against Arnaud Mattern. Mattern raised preflop to 12,500, and Seatelli in the big blind made the call. He then bet out on the 
flop, 20-something-thousand, which Mattern called fairly swiftly. On the turn, however, Seatelli's instant push all in for about 90k went uncalled, Mattern having thrown his hand away before his opponent's stack had come to a full and complete stop.
"I got more than I started with!" Freddy Deeb half-yelled, drawing our attention to the table-to-table conversation between he and Phil Ivey. "I got forty thousand!"
"How much for half your action, Freddy?" Ivey bantered. "Throw a number out there."
"How much are you willing to pay?" Deeb asked.
"What are you guaranteed right now? Twenty thousand pounds? All right, I guess twenty thousand pounds."
Deeb sort of chuckled and returned to his own action, but the conversation was still lingering. "I'll give you £22,000. And I'm lucky too," Ivey tried again.
Barry Greenstein spoke up from the end of Ivey's table, trying to negotiate the sale. "You have to factor in Phil's luck," he said. "Phil once staked three people in a tournament, and they came first, second, and third."
Everyone chuckled, and the conversation turned to how much Ivey would need to sell some of his action. "I'll sell half of myself. Make me an offer."
Now it was Barny Boatman doing the talking. "You should trade half of a percent of you for half of him," Boatman suggested. Everyone chuckled. The debate went back and forth for another couple minutes with no resolution, and it came to a halt when Deeb moved all in on the next hand.
It was Roland de Wolfe who opened the pot to 12,000, and Deeb shipped it in there for 43,000 total. De Wolfe did the math and decided to call with 
, and Deeb was in good shape to double with 
.
The board came 
, holding Deeb's pair and increasing the price of his shares significantly. He's up close to 100,000 now and back in the game.
James Mitchell was all in on the flop of 
holding two nines. He was up against the pocket tens for Marc Inizan. The turn brought the and the river the to send the Irish Open champion to the rail.
Under the gun, Phil Ivey made it 12,500 to play, and Barny Boatman three-bet to 37,500 two seats over. When it came back to Ivey, he made a nonchalant call, heads up to the flop.
The dealer spread out 
, and the action went check-check. On the turn, the 
drew another check from Ivey, and Boatman bet 35,500. Ivey didn't waste much time calling, again pitching the chips into the pot with a certain air of confidence that's hard to explain in words.
That brought them to the 
river, and Ivey knocked the table again. Boatman promptly put both hands behind his stacks and shoved all in for 175,000. Ivey asked for a count, and Boatman started chatting, always a dangerous proposition against Ivey.
"Were you trap-checking on the flop?" he asked.
"Trap-checking?!" Ivey asked, as mildly incredulous as Ivey can get. Boatman continued to jaw, and Ivey obliged him with some friendly banter as he tried to solve the puzzle in front of him. He seemed almost amused at Boatman during their exchange. There was about five minutes of chatter, during which Ivey chuckled under his breath, "Trap-checking..." several more times. Finally, he let Boatman off the hook and surrendered his hand.
Boatman - 330,000
Ivey - 440,000
A big bet on the river with a board of 
from Andrew Pantling just now, which paused his table for a while as opponent Fabrizio Baldassari thought for a long time about the 122,500 which the aggressive Pantling had bet, reaching only slightly into his million-chip stack to do it. Pantling waited patiently, but his patience, and his smacking of the flop, was rewarded when Baldassari paid and mucked, his 
for the flopped set making him the first player past the 1,000,000 mark.
