Antoine Saout
A small pot for WSOP final tablist Antoine Saout.
He raised under the gun and picked up a caller in the small blind. Mr. Small Blind checked the flop, though, and laid it down instantly to a continuation bet from Saout. Easy.
Great Bulgarian hope Atanas Gueorguiev raised to 350 in early position, and got not much respect in the form of calls from both blinds.
The flop came down and it checked around to Gueorguiev who bet 650. Mr. Small Blind made the call, and they proceeded heads up to the turn.
Both players checked the turn and then the river. Gueorguiev turned over which had stayed good against Mr. Small Blind's , and Gueorguiev took down the pot.
Over in the next room we are supposed to have one former World Champion, but Mr. Peter Eastgate has yet to make an appearance. Must be good to be the former World Champion.
We caught up with Victor Ilyukhin as he bet out 4,000 on the river of the board, eliciting some extreme unhappiness from his opponent Stephan Gerin on the button.
"River is good for you, eh?" he attempted, but Ilyukhin was giving nothing away."Ace-queen or queen-queen," Gerin hypothesized, before muttering, "Sick sick sick," and folding.
Ilyukhin showed him . The woeful Gerin flashed the . "I thought you had ace-queen or queen-queen," he sighed. "Well played."
Either he has shrunk to almost nothing rendering him invisible to the naked eye, or Dario Minieri has just failed to make it in so far. He's on the list for today, though, so we'll keep you posted.
Voitto Rintala
Voitto Rintala (sans cat-eye contacts this week) opened the pot with a raise to 400 from middle position. A few seats over, he found action from a lone table mate, and the two went heads-up to the flop.
It came out , and Rintala continued out with a bet of 575. His opponent quickly made the call, and fourth street brought an innocuous looking . Rintala tapped the felt, and he quickly folded to a bet of 1,600. One stab at the pot was all he cared to muster, and he'll fold his way back down to about 33,000 after a positive start to his day.
We arrived tableside to witness an enormous and mysterious pot taking place.
With the flop reading and a fair few chips in the middle already, Cyril Berdah bet out 2,000 and was swiftly called by Vasily Dovedov on his immediate left.
They saw a turn and this time Berdah checked. Dovedov bet out 4,600 without hesitation, and after a while Berdah passed.
We've played two levels of poker, and we're 2/9ths of the way done with the day as a result. This calls for a celebratory break of 15 minutes. Back shortly.