An enormous pot had formed preflop, and so it was that with well over 10,000 in the middle, Richard Toth in the big blind position checked. Nicolas Poloniato promptly moved all in for his last 15,000 or so - and Toth made the call.
Poloniato:
Toth: , making us all wish we'd seen how the preflop action went. Extraordinary.
Turn:
River:
With exactly the right number of clubs on the board to make Toth a flush and deny Poloniato a higher one, Poloniato headed home early and Toth moved on up the leader board.
Antoine Saout, somehow down to just 6,000 or so, made a small raise in late position. Remi Marrale reraised from the small blind, but Saout promptly moved all in and Marrale decided it was too much and folded.
A player in early position opened the pot with a raise to 850, and he was called by a player a couple seats down the line. On the button, Oleksandr Vaserfirer was down to just 2,550 chips, and he put them all in there. The original raiser reluctantly folded his cards, and the caller called again to put Vaserfirer at risk. The news was good though:
Vaserfirer:
Opponent:
The board ran out safe for the at-risk player as it came . That'll double him up and then some, but he's still frowning with his relatively short stack of 6,400 chips.
Curiousness and the attention of the floor required as we arrived tableside to witness a board reading , two players already all in, and Jeremy Nock flipping , still wondering what to do.
The floor issued Nock with a penalty and then furthermore the clock was called. He considered his options, and eventually folded.
On their backs for the other two, then, and it was some hot Russian-on-Russian action.
Roman Gorskiy:
Rafael Iskhakov:
River:
Iskhakov hits the rail, Gorskiy picks up a big ol' pot, and Nock remains on a one-round penalty.
Today's opening flight saw 339 players take their seats by the time registration closed. Tomorrow, that number should push up close to 400 additional players, and there's little doubt that this installment of the EPT Deauville will be the largest ever. Last year's field was 645 runners strong, and it's impossible to think we won't eclipse that this time 'round. The initial soft cap of 600 has been lifted to allow as many players as have €5,300 kicking around to enter and play.
That's good news if you're in Normandy. Get down here and play a record-breaking EPT event!
A crowd alerted us to a huge hand brewing on the table nearest the press area.
We hurried over and witnessed a board that read and a raising war between Mostafa Belkhayate and Eric Levesque, which culminated in Belkhayate moving all in.
"You've got balls if you ain't got three aces," mused Levesque, and spent a while trying to decide which of these two attributes Belkhayate might be in possession of. Eventually he decided it was the three aces.
"Show me! Show me!" said Levesque as Belkhayate raked in the 50,000 pot. Belkhayate declined to show, though, and is up to around 75,000.
After being worked down to about 5,000 chips, we've had Antoine Saout on the blogging version of Death Watch for about an hour now.
In his most recent pot, Saout called a raise to 1,000 from the big blind, and he and the raiser watched the flop come . Saout took the betting lead, firing out another 1,000 chips. His opponent shrugged and called, and he did the same when Saout bet 2,000 on the turn. The river brought the , and Saout pushed all in for just about 5,000 total. His opponent quickly slipped his cards into the muck, and Saout has clawed his way back to about 13,000.