A bit of a hit to Pedro Guedes' stack (used to the giddy heights of 2nd-4th place in the standings) after he had a go at putting some pressure on a shorter stack - Antonio Buonanno. Having created a 27k pot by the flop, we caught the action as big blind Guedes reached to raise mid-position Buonanno, who'd bet 25k. The 65k he'd pushed forward lay spread out in front of him, and Buonanno silently dwelled on the decision while the table waited silently, patiently and with interest.
Finally Buonanno moved all in for 30,300 more. Whatever the others might have been expecting him to do, Guedes really gave his new decision some thought, and finally threw away his hand. Giving him a little wordless comment, Buonanno nonchalantly turned over the .
There was a raise under the gun and we're guessing that the raiser had been doing this a lot as he received no fewer than four calls, including those from Lex Veldhuis in the hijack and Pieter de Korver in the big blind. The flop came down and it checked around to a player in late position who bet 3,200. Veldhuis went all in, the bettor called, and it was Veldhuis' flush draw against his opponent's set. No further diamonds came on the turn and river, and the Dutch Team PokerStars Pro headed for bar or beach.
New member of the Team PokerStars Pro David Williams just was eliminated by the madcap Italian Fabrizio Ascari. Williams had 4-bet shoved with and Ascari called with leaving Williams drawing very thin after a flop of and dead by the turn. A on the river and it's off to the rail for the American.
Big stack Dmitry Gromov, who's been harrying the top of the chip standings all day long, just paid off a couple of chunky bets from Wolfgang Wurzer. In-position Wurzer fired 8,500 on a flop of , then checked behind on the turn. The river paired the and Gromov checked a third time. A bit of a think and a bet from Wurzer of 12,900. Gromov immediately called but mucked when he was shown for the turned set and rivered house. He did it with a grimace/smile combo, saying "One out. I had two pair.."
There was a Canadian shaped hole next to Allan Baekke and we spoke to the EPT Snowfest winner who explained how Sorel Mizzi had been knocked out from the tournament.
Baekke, "Sorel had called a raise from Nicolas Chouity (EPT Monte Carlo Winner) and they'd seen an flop, Nicolas had bet 6,500 and Sorel called. The turn was an and Nicolas checked, Sorel bet 13,000 and Nicolas moved all-in for I think 43,000 total. Sorel called with but Nicolas had flopped a set of fives. Sorel only had like 8,000 left and got it in with against ."
Sterling reporting there from our embedded 'reporter' Allan Baekke.
Maybe some of the players have given up cigarettes, or perhaps they were all queuing for the bathroom at the last break - whatever the reason, there were fewer people we recognised hanging out in the sunshine on the smoking balcony this time around. Nevertheless we managed to catch chip leader Grzegorz Cichocki, EPT Snowfest winner Allan Bække and self-proclaimed "Mad Italian" Fabrizio Ascari.
By the by, one of the unfortunates who did not make it through the last level was Dario Minieri. We regret that we did not manage to catch the hand, but he is definitely bust, and we suspect that if you need him in the next couple days he'll be on or near the beach.
Some of the craziest three-way action I've seen since university (in a poker game I mean, obviously) as three stacks went to war on a flop of
Wolfgang Haag:
Michel Abecassis:
Ronny Kaiser:
The turn was the giving Kaiser a huge number of outs, one of which was the making the German the nuts to win a 135,000 chip pot. Abecassis won a small side pot but was left with just 40,000 remaining. Haag meanwhile is out.