€10,000 EPT Grand Final Main Event Day 1b | 2009 PokerStars.com EPT Grand Final

04-29-2009 14:06 UTC+3

Will You Quit That Already?

[user75032]

Just in case it's not clear enough -- we literally can't take ten steps away from the media table without falling over another notable name that hasn't yet been mentioned or added to the counts. It's getting a little ridiculous. It may be a cliche (but I'm a hack writer, so it's ok to say) but everyone who's anyone in poker is here.

Sorry, Russ Hamilton.

Level: 2

Blinds: 75/150

Ante: 0

04-29-2009 14:19 UTC+3

One Pair is Good

[user46392]

Rory Matthews, the gent with the cheque book behind Sik Tilt, has taken down a surprisingly huge pot on the Table Of British Doom. On an ace-high board with three clubs on it, it turned out that his {A-?}

was good when his opponent just mucked at the end. "What's your name?" asked tablemate Phil Laak. "One pair, he's chip leader," he mused cheerfully.

04-29-2009 14:23 UTC+3

A Few More Tables Of Terror

[user46392]

- Benjamin Kang, Joe Hachem, Will Fry and Thierry van den Berg

- Julian Thew, Juha Helppi and Atanas Gueorguiev

- Tony Cascarino, Jeff Madsen, Barny Boatman, Laurence Houghton and Yevgeniy Timoshenko

Yikes to all of those.

04-29-2009 14:25 UTC+3

Who's That Girl?

[user75032]

If there's one thing I've learned from certain poker media outlets, it's that hot chicks get the web hits. And really, what's not to like about hot chicks? They're soft, they're pretty, they smell nice and sometimes they even talk to goofball hack poker media types (a vastly underrated perq of the job). So consider this a gratuitous hot chick post in an effort to boost our web traffic.

There's quite a sampling of hot chicks in today's field. If blondes are your thing, you can spend a few hours drooling over Vanessa Rousso, Isabelle Mercier, Katja Thater and Vicky Coren. Maybe you like brunettes. We have those too. Liv Boeree, Sandra Naujoks and Alexia Portal have all turned their share of heads, just in the last hour. If your interests lie more to the East, there's always Evelyn Ng, Liz Lieu, Liya Gerasimova and Wooka Kim.

Nobody ever complained about a little eye candy while playing or writing about poker. Certainly not us.

04-29-2009 14:27 UTC+3

Feldman Busts Nelly

[user46298]

Nelly: whirlwind visit to EPT Grand Final

Straight off the bat, young Englishman Andrew Feldman rockets up to nearly 70,000 after busting rap star Nelly in short order. His table was getting involved from the very first hand, and when the smoke from the fireworks cleared, Feldman was chip leader:

The under the gun player raised to 300, which Feldman called with {A-Spades}

. "A loose player made it 1,200 then," continues Feldman, "And Nelly called - so did I and so did a third player."

The flop came {A-?}

. Three checks to Nelly, who bet 5,000. With no interest elsewhere, Feldman tanked, deciding how to play what he thought was the best hand. He made it 15,000. Nelly instacalled. The {3-Clubs}

came on the turn, Feldman checked and Nelly moved all in. Call. Nelly's {A-Diamonds}

was drawing thin and after the {8-Hearts}

river he was out the door.

His bodyguard (overheard): "Man, he was out in like half an hour!"

Tags: Andrew Feldman Nelly

04-29-2009 14:37 UTC+3

No Stress for Strassmann

[user46392]

Johannes Strassmann is up to a pleasing 50,000 already after calling a 12,000 bet on the river of a {9-Diamonds}

. He tanked up for a long time before making the call, and when he finally stuck his chips in, his opponent mucked before Strassmann had even turned over his aces.

04-29-2009 14:39 UTC+3

Mehr Licht-enberger!

[user46298]

Andrew Lichtenberger doubles the number of players named 'Andrew' who have staked a claim to the Early Chip Leader title. I only saw the tail end, where the board had come {5-Spades}

and a sad-looking player was seeing his stack eviscerated by the {3-Spades}

of young Lichtenberger.

These eliminations seem to be coming thick and fast in the secondary tournament area. It's as if the players are helping the tournament directors break their tables nice and early in advance of the €550 shootout coming soon (the first ever held at the EPT).

Tags: Andrew Lichtenberger

04-29-2009 14:53 UTC+3

Overheard at the Tables

[user75032]

Normally we're able to eavesdrop on a decent amount of non-poker conversation in the early levels of a major tournament like the EPT Grand Final. Today, however, it seems that poker is the only thing on anybody's mind:

"We played together in the tournament in Macau. The PokerStars one -- not that other one..."

"That bluff went wrong at Bay101."
"Yeah, it was the wrong guy..."

"Did your boy there tell you how he won 20,000 chips 45 minutes ago with one pair?"

"Geez, what kind of table is this? People are laying down queens. At the other table they go all in with deuces!"

04-29-2009 15:04 UTC+3

Van Den Berg Vs. Ziigmund

[user46392]

We officially have a new Table Of Doom -- along with the line-up of Benjamin Kang, Joe Hachem, Will Fry and Thierry van den Berg, we now have also one Ilari Sahamies thrown into the mix, sandwiched between Kang and Hachem.

Van den Berg and Sahamies just now tangled and it was van den Berg who came out on top -- he bet 6,000 on the river of a {7-Hearts}

board, and after a long time in the tank, Sahamies passed. Ben Kang claimed to have seen Sahamies' hand, and claimed it was a queen-high flush. "He had a flush on the turn?" said van den Berg, "I should have bet the flop."