With 7,000 in the pot by the turn of the board, Gustavo Zito open-shoved. Just open-shoved, for around 27,000. Yup.
Over to a gentleman who will be known only as Mr. Cantonati until we can ascertain his first name. Mr. Cantonati, already a 60,000 big stack after finding aces to knock out Michael Tureniec and his pocket kings a little earlier, sighed. Eventually he folded an incredibly strong face up, to astonishment from everybody. Zito declined to show.
Benny Spindler in miniature
When we arrived tableside, the flop read and the gentleman in early position had a 650 bet across the line in front of him. Benny Spindler on the button had a raise to 1,400 in front of his stack, and the gentleman in the big blind was reraising to 5,000. Mr. Early Position passed, and it was back to Spindler, who reraised. Mr. Big Blind, who's somehow slipped to around half his starting stack already, pushed all in. Spindler called, and they were on their backs.
Spindler: a reasonable
Mr. Big Blind: a somewhat less reasonable
Turn:
Mr. Early Position: "S**t, I had king-jack."
River:
Out goes Mr. Big Blind, his tournament over almost as soon as it had begun, and Spindler is up to a nice early 46,000 or so.
We caught up with well-known British circuit pro Priyan Demel as he was betting out 2,500 on the turn of a board. The action moved over to his opponent on the button, who dwelled up for an unreasonably long time, far longer than should be acceptable in level 1. Eventually he folded, and Demel is having a pretty good start to the day.
Something for everyone here, I'm sure you'll agree:
Leo Margets
Mel Judah
Thomas Brolin
Boris Becker
Pascal Perrault
Soren Kongsgaard
Asa Smith
Marc Naalden
Mick McCool
Anthony Lellouche
Paul "Pab" Foltyn
Kati Jerney
Benny Spindler
Alain Roy
Alexia Portal
Yep, the pros are in the house today. From Team PokerStars, we have Dario Minieri, Alexander Kravchenko, and Thierry van den Berg, with more of them expected to file in over the course of the first two levels.
Apart from them, we have some of the familiar EPT regulars with us as well. Jeff Sarwer is playing, and that should set his opening table quaking in their shoes. Runner up from EPT Warsaw, Oleksandr Vaserfirer is here, as is the champion from that event, Christophe Benzimra. And to round out this batch of names, we've spotted Carter Phillips, the young american pro who took down EPT Barcelona earlier this year.
More names to come. And as always, you can find the full list of players we're tracking in the Chip Counts page to the right.
Separated from the rest of the field, possibly to enable easy railing of their tables, or possibly to keep them from infecting the rest of the field, who knows, are these little gems:
- Darus Suharto, Bertrand "ElkY' Grospellier and stereotypical Italian Sergio Castellucio, all sharing a table
- Similarly Huck Seed, Sorel Mizzi, Sebastian Ruthenberg and Hit Squadder Chaz Chattha
- also the Euro-table that includes Noah Boeken, Tristan Clemencon and Julien Brecard
We're just about set to go. The players are in their seats and filling out their information sheets and the chips are being passed out. We should be underway following a few quick announcements from the esteemed Mr. Kremser.
board, Gustavo Zito open-shoved. Just open-shoved, for around 27,000. Yup.
face up, to astonishment from everybody. Zito declined to show.
board. The action moved over to his opponent on the button, who dwelled up for an unreasonably long time, far longer than should be acceptable in level 1. Eventually he folded, and Demel is having a pretty good start to the day.
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