A battle of the blinds could have turned from tussle to fight to the death as Matt Affleck put the pressure on and was squeezed right back. Small blind Andras Koroknai raised to 22,500, Affleck made it a round 50,000 and Koroknai started a lengthy period of thinking. He had more than Affleck's 115k behind, but not a whole lot, so his decision was clearly causing him some concern. The clock was called.
"You have one minute to make a decision."
"Thirty seconds."
"Ten."
Koroknai moved all in and Affleck passed immediately. He allowed himself a mini fistpump and exhaled the tension, stacking the pot without a flop.
Whilst the aggression preflop is still quite high, with almost every pot being raised, post flop the new trend seems to be to play as passively as humanly possibly, as displayed by Rob Hollink and Dominik Nitsche.
Hollink min-raised first in from the hijack and only Nitsche in the small blind called. The pair checked the flop, and the turn and the river with Hollink then turning over for ace-high, losing to Nitsche's
Yury Kerzhapkin shoved under the gun with for around 40,000 and found a caller in Liviu Ignat holding . A most entertaining board followed - - and Kerzhapkin, who finished 45th here last, doubled to around 90,000 while tablemates Melanie Weisner and Toby Lewis discussed things that could possibly have made the flop more entertaining.
We have mentioned Toby Lewis dozens of times today and it is not some weird crush we have on him, he is simply being involved in lots of pots each time we are near his table over at the back of the room.
In this latest hand, Lewis raised to 8,000 from late position and both Ion Pavel and Melanie Weisner in the blinds made the call, though the latter asked how much Lewis was playing from before putting in the extra 4,000 chips required to call.
Flop: - All three players quickly checked
Turn: - Again, all three players decided checking was the best action
River: - This time Pavel checked, as did Weisner but Lewis tossed a single yellow 5,000 chip into the pot and only Pavel called.
Nicolas Babel raised in the hijack and to his immediate left Rasmus Nielsen reraised to 21,500. Back to Babel, who now made it 41,000. After a while Nielsen called.
They saw a flop and both players checked very slowly, with the absolute maximum of suspicious glances at each other. On the turn, though, Babel bet out 48,000, and Nielsen gave it up.
Current standings: Babel 190,000, Nielsen 145,000.
There are a good handful of short stacks among the remaining 107 players, and now that we've entered the final level of the day no one wants to miss the potential money bubble (80 are paid). The closest to the felt currently are Chaz Chattha (19,000) and Kaspars Renga. Whoever lasts the longest today/tomorrow will win the Grinder of the Tournament award. Chattha returned with just over 40,000 this afternoon while Renga started with just 24,000.
One table away, another short stack, Oleksander Vaserfirer was in no mood to fold with a 33,000 stack and on the button. Big blind Jaroslav Vajgl gave him a spin holding and the board brought nothing particularly noteworthy (I noted it anyway: ) and Vaserfirer has a more comfortable 70,000.
Luca Pagano opened for 10,000 on the button but was soon faced with an all-in reraise from around 110,000 from Andreas Berggren in the big blind. Pagano tanked up for a length of time that suggested he was seriously considering a call, but in the end he folded, taking a slight hit to 130,000. Nevertheless the Italian Team PokerStars Pro is a mere 22 exits away from breaking his own EPT cash record.
Chaz Chattha, probably the shortest stack in the entire room, has doubled through Dominik Nitsche bringing him a grand total of 53,000. He'd clearly picked up a blinds and antes pot just before (moving in uncalled) as he had an extra yellow 5k chip. His stack on the big blind compared to button Nitsche, however, was insignificant, as was the small blind's stack. So Nitsche just moved all-in, asking them the same question.
The small blind passed but Chattha took one look at his cards, nodded and called.
Chattha:
Nitsche:
The flop brought one pair for the big stack: Nitsche remarked that this too was a sweat, "Hit a three! Another nine could make it interesting..."
But the turn and river came meaning Chattha survives once more.
Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki has just tangled with Kevin Stani but failed in his quest to extract many chips from him. Stani opened from middle position to 10,600 and when the action folded around to Horecki in the small blind he made the call.
Both players checked the flop but Horecki bet 12,200 on the arrival of the on the turn. Unfortunately for him, especially as I saw his hoel cards when he showed them to a Polish reporter stood behind him, Stani insta-folded
Kiril Petrov Zahariev has turned 74,000 into just under a quarter of a million after a three-way all in went his way. Although we only caught the aftermath (a board of , one empty chair and Morgan Bauer counting out a portion of his stack) it must have gone something like:
Short stack Thomas Finneran moves in first with (40,000 or so), then he's followed by Zahariev holding with 74,000, and finally Bauer takes the both of them on with .
The low board kept the jacks in front and a happy Zahariev is in better shape than he's been all day.
![[user46298]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
flop, and the 
turn and the 
river with Hollink then turning over 
for ace-high, losing to Nitsche's 
for around 40,000 and found a caller in Liviu Ignat holding 
. A most entertaining board followed - 
- and Kerzhapkin, who finished 45th here last, doubled to around 90,000 while tablemates Melanie Weisner and Toby Lewis discussed things that could possibly have made the flop more entertaining.
- All three players quickly checked
- Again, all three players decided checking was the best action
- This time Pavel checked, as did Weisner but Lewis tossed a single yellow 5,000 chip into the pot and only Pavel called.
on the button. Big blind Jaroslav Vajgl gave him a spin holding 
) and Vaserfirer has a more comfortable 70,000.
.