It doesn't seem five minutes since I counted Matt Afflecks stack as 34,825 but he now appears to have almost 10,000 less at 26,250 chips.
I just saw him open from under the gun to 450 on a seven-handed table and both the hijack and the player in the big blind made the call. A saw the big blind check, Affleck bet 750, which was enough to fold out both of his opponents.
Aggressive players suffer from wild swings in their chip counts, Affleck is no different to any other. Hold on folks, it could be quite a ride!
Philipp Steiner didn't push off either the cutoff (Fredrik Forsell) or button (Bea Hargitai) with his preflop three-bet to 1,175. They all saw a flop which Steiner bet. Forsell called the 1,600 while Hargitai folded. On the turn Steiner checked and now Forsell counted out 2,300, calmly pushing it over the line. Steiner thought briefly about it, and laid his hand down, only to be shown the which big draw Forsell seemingly felt the need to flick with a 'thwap' noise and throw down as one generally does a pure bluff. Grins on one side of the table, and resignation on the other.
Whilst walking the tournament floor I spotted Matt "MCMATTO" Affleck at table 25, sporting a purple and gold Washington Huskies jersey.
Affleck is a very accomplished player in his own right but he is also famous for THAT bad beat at this year's World Series of Poker Main Event. In the hands he got his stack in on a board holding against Jonathan Duhamel's . The river was the , completing Duhamel's straight and eliminating Affleck in 15th place. This pot, topping the scales at 42,000,000 chips, catapulted Duhamel to the top of the chip counts and that is where he stayed as he eventually became champion on November 8th.
Ronan Monfort is no stranger to EPTs - as a member of the French poker media, he's been to about as many of these things as Luca Pagano has. But today is a very special day for Monfort, as he has taken his seat on the other side of the rail, and is right now experiencing his first ever EPT as a player. So far he's had a decent start - we found him flipping over on an board, eliciting a fold from his opponent and bumping his stack up to around 32,000 early doors.
Poker players are well known for bringing all sorts of gadgets with them whilst they are playing in these deep stacked tournaments, with the latest must-have piece of kit being the Apple iPad.
Sorel Mizzi has brought his with him to EPT Prague and is currently sat watching the 1939 hit "It's a Wonderful World." In case you have not seen it, the film is about Detective Guy Johnson's attempts to prove his death-row client's innocence.
See, who says we are all just chip counts and hand reporting. You can add movie critic to our list of talents too!
Maria 'May' Maceiras is no stranger to the EPT. In fact, she has cashed three times this year already, and finished 40th back in 2008 when the buy-in to EPT Barcelona was an even-steeper €8,000. Today she's up from her starting 30,000 by a couple of thousand, and looking focused beneath her jumbo silver headphones. Her most recent pot came courtesy of a board, which she bet from the button (1.050) after calling a flop bet from the preflop raiser. She had called 300 preflop from the button after a couple of other players had called, stayed around on the Jack-high flop (unlike the others) and then took the pot right there.
Dermot Blain, the winner at the 2009 APPT Macau Main Event is present in the cardroom but has just dropped to 28,000.
Joining the hand on a board reading , Blain bet 300 from the big blind and his opponent on the button quickly made the call. The river brought the and this time Blain checked. His opponent quickly bet a single red 1,000 chip, which prompted Blain to check his hole cards. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't magically turn them into two hearts and he mucked his hand.