Other-half-of-the-room chip counts are in the eager greasy paws of Djinn and Homer and being typed up now. All of our biggest stacks - Sorel Mizzi, Stephen Chidwick and Sam Trickett on 110,000 apiece - are on this side of the room.
The board had been fully dealt and read when we arrived. There was a little over 20,000 in the pot. It looked as though Dmitry Stelmak had checked to Christopher de Meulder on the button, who bet 6,000. Back to Stelmak, who went all in.
De Meulder sighed and asked, "How much?" 18,900 more, he was told - around half his remaining stack. He thought about it long, and hard, and then called - but mucked when Stelmak turned over for a full house. De Meulder quietly got up and walked away, presumably to go and vomit in the bathroom or some such, while Stelmak stacked up his 56,000 in chips. When de Meulder returns it will be to a stack of less than 20,000.
Every time in a tournament these days it seems, there's a Russian who comes from almost nowhere and is among the chip leaders. In Vilamoura, it's Leonid Bilokur who has amassed a huge stack of 140,000 and this was after he just lost several thousand when losing with to a short stacked Antonio Lemos on a board.
The rollercoaster day experienced by Pokerstars Team Pro Daniel Negreanu has finally come to an end, the safety harness has risen and he has followed the Exit signs out of the tournament.
At one point with over 55k, the last levels had not been kind to him, and at last count he was down around 25k. Further than that, we expect, when a preflop raising war vs. Ivo Donev (him under the gun to 1,325, re-raise to 7k, move in, call) saw his stack at risk with vs. . The bigger pair stayed in front, and abruptly that was the end of Negreanu, who beat a swift retreat. No photos in the gift shop, though, this is Portugal.