Up on the feature table (we're not allowed up there, so many thanks to TD Thomas Kremser for filling us in afterwards) it folded around to Fabrizio Gonzalez in the small blind who pushed with 
offsuit, and Daniel Negreanu called in the big blind with 
. A ten dropped on the flop, and we have our first casualty of the day.
Another double up for Antonio Buonanno as he open-shoved from the button and Ramin Hajiyev re-shoved from the small blind. On their backs.
Buonanno: 
Hajiyev: 
Hajiyev: "One time!"
Flop: 
Hakiyev: "Ten times!"
Turn and river: 
and 
respectively
Hajiyev stuck out his hand; after a moment of Buonanno not registering him, he poked his arm until he shook hands. Buonanno doubled to 390,000; Hajiyev was left with 100,000.
Despite never seeming to rise above the chip average, and indeed often to be grinding a very low-rise stack, Surinder Sunar has hung in there all the way and is now on the feature table. He's just doubled through to 300k courtesy of Anestis Pantazidis, who threebet all in preflop and found Surinder with too short a stack to raise-fold, and also . Pantazidis could have sent our first player to the rail today if his 
had held, but instead became the short stack as the board fell 
.
The famous saying about chips and chairs (you only need one of each to win a poker tournament) seems to be illustrated by Antonio Buonanno's rise from the dead. His microstack became 70k when his spiked against 
(the board an amusing 
). His table wasn't laughing, however, when he doubled up again shortly thereafter against the very hand which had just kept him alive - the of Konstantinos Nanos. His 
held as the board came 
and he now has over 150k.
Nima Ahary started the day with 332,000 chips but has so far been bleeding them away over at table one without even seeing any flops. The first person to take advantage of Ahary's aggressive approach was Jose Severino. Severino opened in early position for 30,000 and Ahary made the three-bet to 75,000. The action folded around to Severino and he moved all-in prompting a fold from Ahary.
The next person to cause problems for Ahary was Bruno Launais. Ahary opened from middle position to 35,000 and Launais made the three-bet to 81,000 causing Ahary to have to fold again.
Ahary ~ 186,000
Antonio Buonanno started the day in 8th place in the chip count so I assume he was full of optimism for what might be a good day 4 for the Italian. Unfortunately, his dreams of EPT glory have been dealt a huge blow early in Day 4, this is how it happened.
Balazs Botond made it 26,000 to play from early position and Buonanno made the call to his direct left. Everybody folded leaving the two of them to see a flop of 
. Botond made a continuation bet of 27,000 and Buonanno made the three-bet to 95,000 and Botond made the call.
The turn was the 
and Botond checked. Buonanno declared that he was all-in and Botond instantly called. Buonanno had 
for a flopped set and Boton had 
for the turned straight.
Botond's chip stacks has now risen to ~ 1,500,000 and Buonanno has a meagre 34,000
Level: 21
Blinds: 8,000/16,000
Ante: 2,000
The end of the 6k/12k level is playing out (with no break before the next one) with very few cards visible to anyone other than the players themselves. This doesn't make the preflop action boring - far from it - instead the stacks are such that players can get in a good number of raises before one of them caves or pushes and so there is some real excitement for the rail around the two outer tables.
An example of just such a pot, taken with preflop aggression, was that won by Martin Hruby from button Andreas Wiese. Wiese made the standard raise at the moment, 27k, on the button, and Hruby raised him to 57k. Back to Wiese, who fourbet 132k. Hruby took a little longer to mull over this raise, but made the same decision he'd made last time: to repop him. This bet of 227k finally saw Wiese give up his hand and one of the Day One chip leaders has started the day well.
Lets get this part started.
Level: 20
Blinds: 6,000/12,000
Ante: 1,000
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