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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
An unknown player has just scooped a rather large pot, whilst short on chips, after tangling with pros Sorel Mizzi and Marvin Rettemaier.
The action folded to our hero in the hijack and he opened the betting with a raise to 400. Next to act in the cutoff was Mizzi, who made the call, as did Rettemaier on the button. Both blinds folded.
Flop:
Our hero continued his aggression with a bet of 700 chips, a bet that Mizzi quickly and nonchalantly called by literally tossing in a single red chip. After around 20 seconds pause, Rettemaier came along for the ride too.
Turn:
After betting preflop and on the flop, our unknown hero kept his foot firmly on the gas and fired a bet of 1,200, enough to fold out Mizzi but Rettemaier looked as if he was in for the long haul as he made the call.
River:
Following on from the previous streets, the hijack bet 2,200, leaving himself less than 10,000 behind and after around a minute of thinking time, Rettemaier mucked his hand.
Whilst counting the chip stacks at the end of the hand, out hero informed Rettemaier that he had flopped a set of three, to whch Rettemaier tapped the table and acknowledged his opponent's "nice hand."
Mizzi drops to 30,000, Rettemaier to 26,800 whilst our hero moves up to 15,625
Right at the back of the tournament area (a very large conference centre/ballroom/event cavern with plenty of room for both cash games and the EPT Main and side events) is a table shared by Joao Barbosa and Atanas Gueorguiev (the latter in position). Barbosa has $1,000,000 in tournament cashes, most of them on the EPT, including one title at EPT Warsaw in 2008 for €367,140. Most recently he won the €2,000 side event at EPT San Remo this year for another cool quarter of a million, and seems to be in good form. However the consistent Gueorguiev is going to be problematic for him - just now taking down a pot preflop with a big blind three-bet after the button had raised and Barbosa called in the small blind.
![[user46392]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
on an 
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.
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.
saw the big blind check, Affleck bet 750, which was enough to fold out both of his opponents.
