Tom Macdonald is grabbing the attention from the chip leader
Guillaume de la Gorce finished Day 1a as the chip leader so we have been watching his table to see how he is wielding his big stack but it is Tom Macdonald who has grabbed our attention.
Marc Delimel opened with a raise from early position when he made it 2,800 to play. Macdonald was sat waiting in the small blind and when the action folded around to him he three bet making it 7,500 to play. Delimel called and we saw a flop of . Macdonald took the betting lead and made it 10,000 to play but Delimel raised to 23,500. Macdonald asked to see Delimel's stack and Delimel moved his hands out of the way so Macdonald could have a good stare. Macdonald realising that he had Delimel covered moved all-in and after a long pause the Frenchman folded leaving him 42,000 behind.
Tom Macdonald ~ 155,000
Guillame de la Gorce ~ 211,000
Chuckling around Ion Pavel's table alerted us to the fact that he was doubling up in spectacular fashion. We only saw the very end of the hand, but the cards looked like so:
Pavel:
Opponent:
Board:
The EPT Prague 11th place finisher and ski hat enthusiast doubled to 85,000.
He brought us plenty of fun and action yesterday when he tangled with Almira Skripchenko and Jean Noel Thorel but Viktor "Isildur1" Blom's EPT experience has ended at the hands of a Frenchman called Cyril.
We caught the action as Blom was making a rather swift exit. The board was showing and the winning hand of was also on display. It belonged to Cyril Hanouna and he is the man responsible for eliminating Blom. Apparently, Hanouna opened from the button and Blom shoved for 30,000 and Hanouna called.
Blom had a pair of sixes and was heading for a double up until the river made a flush for Hanouna.
Having huge towers of 100 chips generally means you have been pretty active sweeping up a lot of ante's. The player sat in seat 9 over on table 8 has such a stack and he opened up the action in this hand from under the gun with a raise of 3,100. The action folded around to Antoine Saout in the small blind who called before the big blind folded.
The flop was and Saout checked to the raiser who made a bet of 3,700. Saout flicked his scarf back before making the check raise to 10,600. His opponent counted out a four bet and played with it for a little while before folding.
Viktor Blom's table looks like it is next for the chop as it is located right on the outer rim of the tournament area and right now a move may be good for him.
His chip stack is now around the 83,000 mark which means he has either lost a big pot or lots of pretty big pots.
We asked him what had happened but he was not very forthcoming with his response!
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. Macdonald took the betting lead and made it 10,000 to play but Delimel raised to 23,500. Macdonald asked to see Delimel's stack and Delimel moved his hands out of the way so Macdonald could have a good stare. Macdonald realising that he had Delimel covered moved all-in and after a long pause the Frenchman folded leaving him 42,000 behind.
and the winning hand of 
was also on display. It belonged to Cyril Hanouna and he is the man responsible for eliminating Blom. Apparently, Hanouna opened from the button and Blom shoved for 30,000 and Hanouna called.
for a rivered set and Yacoub was left declaring, "I should've moved all-in on the turn...What a river!"
and Saout checked to the raiser who made a bet of 3,700. Saout flicked his scarf back before making the check raise to 10,600. His opponent counted out a four bet and played with it for a little while before folding.
