Now that Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier is sitting there, the TV crew seem finally to have cottoned on to our Table Of Death over in the corner. We wandered over there to find that there had been an opening raise to 4,700 and a call from the hijack, before ElkY re-popped for an additional 10,000 from the big blind. One by one, his opponents' cards went into the much and ElkY picked up the pot.
ElkY asked tablemate Johnny Lodden what he thought he'd had. "Queens," said Lodden. "I show you, for the cameras," ElkY told him, and revealed . He's at 140,000.
Team PokerStars Pro, Johnny Lodden is out of the EPT Barcelona Main Event after moving all-in preflop for 21,500 with and running into the of Giuseppe Sammartino.
The television crews rushed to get a glimpse of the talented Norwegian, hoping for an ace to double up their hero, but it was not to come. A flop was followed by the on the turn and finally the on the river to send him to the rail well short of the money.
Carlos Mortensen is making a charge up the leaderboard and now has 181,000 chips in front of him.
The under the gun player opened with a raise to 6,000, two folds later and the action was on "El Matador." A quick peek at his hole cards and the 2001 WSOP Main Event winner called. A couple more folds and the small blind came along for the ride.
Flop: and the action gets checked around by all three players
Turn: The small blind takes a stab at the pot with a 15,000 bet, causing the player UTG to get out of the way but Mortensen made the call very quickly.
He didn't seem too talkative when we approached him (when we asked him his name, he silently took possession of our pen and paper and wrote "Ben Warrington" very slowly) but we know that he's a young player from the UK and he looks to be in the lead at the moment with around 300,000.
A strange hand just took place over on Table 1, our official Table of Death, where "Elky" mucked on the river, despite not facing a bet!
Mr Grospellier opened on the button to 5,200 and only the small blind called. The all-spade flop reading saw the small blind check, Elky bet 1,600 and the small blind call.
The on the turn saw the action go check, check, which was exactly the same as the river.
The dealer asked Elky to show his hand but instead he mucked his hand pretty quickly.
The 9th place finisher at EPT Vilamoura, Erik van den Berg has just doubled up. Van den Berg opened for 6,000 and a player to his direct left called before the big blind shoved for 50,000. Van den berg had 58,000 behind and made the call. The player to his left realised three was a crowd and moved out of the way.
Van den Berg:
Opponent:
The board was no help to his opponent and van den Berg moved up to 108,000
Our French friends in the press room were good enough to fill us in on the exit of WSOP bracelet winner Davidi Kitai.
Apparently the scruffy-haired Belgian raised in mid position and the player in the small blind called to see a flop with two diamonds on it. The small blind checked, Kitai bet 7,000, the small blind went all in to cover, and Kitai called all in.