With sleep still in his eyes, EPT Barcelona champion Carter Phillips has joined the tournament just before the start of the second level.
"Housekeeping just woke me up 15 minutes ago," he said with a smirk. "The wake-up call service at the hotel is not the best. Plus I played online poker all night." Indeed he did; Phillips took fifth place in the $100+r in the wee hours of the Portuguese morning.
With the aforementioned Christophe Benzimra also paying today, two of the last three EPT champions are in the house.
That's three Team PokerStars Pros and one PokerStars Sponsored Player, if you're scoring at home. Eastgate, it should noted, is looking unusually chipper this morning. Gloria Balding just noticed: "Oh my god, he's smiling!... Look, he's still smiling!" With Joe Cada having taken over Eastgate's role as WSOP Champion last week, it seems possible that Eastgate is a little more relaxed now that the heavy weight now rests on someone else's shoulders.
"He's talkative too! Look at him, he's chatting it up over there!"
It should also be noted that Eastgate walked in wearing a Team PokerStars Pro United States patch. And that the PokerStars staff is scurrying around like lemmings trying to find a Nordics patch to replace it with.
A young gentleman whose stripy blue hoodie marks him out as an online qualifier raised in mid position, and it folded around to Sami Kelopuro in the small blind, who reraised to 1,000. Back to Young Qualifier Gentleman, who re-popped him for around 3,000. A pause from Kelopuro to consider his options, or possibly just to savour the very thorough massage he will most likely be receiving throughout his run in this tournament, and then a call.
They saw a flop and Kelopuro checked; Young Qualifier Gentleman confidently bet 6,000. Back to Kelopuro, who promptly put his whole stack in the middle. With an enormous sigh, Young Qualifier Gent sat back in his chair and removed his aviators. There followed a couple of minutes' heartfelt sighing before he folded face up, hypothesizing in Kelopuro's hand. Kelopuro mucked his hand though, and is up to 43,500.
During a cigarette break, Andy Black couldn't resist filling us in on a recent hand he played.
"I was just all in during the first level. Again. On a bluff. It's like the fifth tournament in a row I've been all in on a bluff in the first level.
Black recounted the hand. With a raise in front of him, Black called with . A third player re-raised, and both Black and the original raiser called.
The flop came (X) rainbow, and the re-raiser bet 2,500. Both opponents called, and the turn brought a blank. When the aggressor led out with another bet of 7,000, Black moved all in for about 23,000 total. After some deliberation, his opponent surrendered, and Black could exhale.
That's all we had time to hear from him. Just after lighting up his cigarette, Black glanced back into the tournament room. "Oh it's my big blind!" he yelled, chucking his smoke and sprinting back to his nearby table just as the dealer dealt his second card.
Nicolas "Hat Pimp" Levi has picked up a nice little pot, betting 2,000 on the river of a board. Johannes Strassmann called, but then mucked when Levi turned over for two pair to put him up to 37,500. Strassmann's not doing too badly, though - he's still on 38,500.
A gentleman raised to 550 in mid position; Huck Seed called from the button.
Mr. Mid Position bet out on the flop and Seed called, and then he bet out again on the harmless-looking turn. This time, though, Seed passed, leaving himself with 24,000 or so. He didn't look terribly bothered.
We're not terribly sure what happened - nobody at the table seems particularly short, chip-wise anyway - but diminutive Italian Dario Minieri has somehow managed to bump his stack up to around 65,000. An excellent first couple of levels, and he is looking suitably pleased with himself.
A solid Wall Of Media around Andy Black's table alerted us to situation, which involved some sort of raising war culminating in Mr. Black moving all in on a flop. A third player had in some way been involved, but when we arrived at the table the action was on a middle-aged gentleman a couple seats to Black's right, who was down to 10 seconds on the clock. Eventually he folded, turning over in the process. Black turned over and looked like he was waiting for a turn and river. "Oh, you folded," he said eventually. "I thought you said call. I was just going to show you one."