The cards are flying once again.
Incidentally, it appears we have about 341 runners for Day 1a, but the numbers still have not been finalized. Again, we're not really sure what the hold up is (and the board briefly showed as many as 357), but we hope to have some final numbers for you soon.
Level: 5
Blinds: 150/300
Ante: 25
Just before the break we witnessed a fine recovery for Jan Heitmann.
The board read 
when we arrived and Davidi Kitai was betting out 3,300. A second player in mid position called, as did Jan Heitmann in late position.
The river was the 
and this time it checked around to Heitmann, who silently pushed his whole stack across the line - just shy of 10,000.
Kitai looked pained. He had 10,600 left to his name, and he began an epic dwell-up, shaking his head and after a while apparently having some trouble breathing. He tanked up for so long that the TV guy holding the boom mic, who we assume is used to holding that up for long periods, got tired and had to readjust. Still he tanked.
Eventually Kitai folded and the action moved on to the second player. He grinned and asked how much it was, but after a short while he folded too.
Heitmann moved back up to 23,000.
Everyone's back in their seats, and we're thirteen minutes overdue to get back under way.
We're sure there's a reason for this pause... we're just not sure what it is. We should be dealing again shortly, hopefully.
We've played two full levels here so far, and the players have been sent off for their second break of the day. It's a long walk down the stairs to the smoking/congregating area outside, and the players will be greeted by a bleak, gray, drizzly day once they get there.
They've got 15 minutes to enjoy the fine London weather.
There was roughly 8,000 in the pot when we arrived on the turn of a 
board. One player had checked to Jeff Sarwer, who bet 3,100. Back to the other player, who now raised to 8,000. Sarwer spent several minutes in the tank before making the call.
The river was the 
and the check-raiser fingered his stack rather worryingly for a while and then bet out around 10,000, leaving himself just 6,000 behind. Sarwer tanked up for a few minutes more, during which time we were briefly distracted by a preflop showdown over at the next table (Richard Ashby and Dan Smith with 
each; they chopped it) and when we returned, Sarwer had folded and was looking at his opponent like he hated him.
Sarwer - 38,000.
Just as we got to the break, Nicky Evans knocked an Italian player to add about 11,000 to his stack when the Englishman's 
held fairly easily against his Italian opponent's 
on a 
board.
Evans up to about 60,000
Chip monster Pim de Goede (pronounced roughly "Pim de Hoodie") is up to over 160,000. He was last spotted four-betting to cover fellow Dutchie Joep van den Bijgaart (pronounced "Yoop van den Bye-Heart"). Van den Bijgaart had only 3,000 or so invested in the hand and had 26,000 remaining, so he did the decent thing and folded.
All eyes were on Joao Azevedo at table 18, not because he was in a hand but he was deep in concentration, focused purely on the job in hand...
He was playing Angry Birds on his iPad which seemed to have distracted most of the table for the actual task in hand. Why worry about a £5,000 tournament when there's one level on Angry Birds you haven't got three stars on?
Ben Wilinofsky had pushed all-in for his last 11,000 on the river of a 
board but got called by his opponent in seat 9. Wilinofsky didn't want to show but given that he was all-in, the dealer got him to flip his busted flush-draw holding of 
. His opponent having made a good 
to pick up the pot.
