It folded around to Guillaume de la Gorce in the small blind who raised to 9,500. In the big blind, Ludovic Voisin tanked for several minutes before reraising to 20,500.
Back to de la Gorce, who silently and expressionlessly made it 52,500 to go. And then back to Voisin, who commenced a second epic spell in the tank. He dwelled and he dwelled and eventually someone called the clock, and the clock ticked all the way down and finally Voisin's hand was folded for him.
The bloggers and other players at the table will not be getting those seven or eight minutes of their lives back, and in fact the only person who gained anything from that hand was de la Gorce, who is back up to 160,000.
Antoine Amourette has been eliminated after losing a big 200,000 chip flip with against Nicolo Calia's after the board came . Amourette was left with about 2,000 left and eliminated in the next hand.
Team Pokerstars Pros Matthias de Meulder and Juan Manuel Pastor have just clashed in the blinds and the result was 95% of de Meudler's chips stack being pushed over the line. Pastor was in the tank and eventually he decided that he couldn't decide what to do. So he took a die out of his pocket and rolled it across the table. He rolled a five and mucked his hand.
Our new chip leader, Alex Wice, is the fastest poker player in the West. This boy just does not mess about and every decision is made very quickly indeed. Interestingly his speedy actions seem to rub off on his opponents who seem to be calling, folding and raising with the same speed at Wice.
Wice raised to 10,000 and Morgan Angerfors moved all-in for 83,000. Wice called and flipped over his Aces before the Dealer had worked out what the hell was going on. Angerfors was in a world of hurt when he flipped over pocket Queens. Emile Petit then made Angerfors' day even worse when he told him that he also had a queen so he was drawing to one out in the deck. The dealer then found that one out as the first card placed onto the flop was in fact the only Queen in the deck. The rest of the cards were irrelevant as Angerfors doubled up through Wice.
In the next hand Wice again threw in two chips worth 5,000 each and this time his opponent called. The flop was and Wice flicked out 10,000 before I believe the last card was even flopped. His opponent called very quickly. Then in a flash of lightning usually reserved for Usain Bolts trainers the was placed on the felt, Wice had checked, his opponent had bet 20,000 and Wice's cards were in the muck.
Gregory Lhomer opened to 11,200 from middle position before Bruno Fitoussi slid out his entire 55,500 stack into the middle. The action was passed back to Lhomer who thought for a minute before making the call.
Fitoussi turned over and Lhomer flipped , we were off to the (57-43) races. The board bricked out for the more famous of the two Frenchmen coming with mostly low cards on the board. Lhomer celebrated with a fistpump while Fitoussi shock the hands of his assassin and wished the table good luck.