Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano has just been involved in a tussle with his fellow countryman Andrea Piva, which relieved the former of a few chips.
With the board reading Pagano made a bet of 3,300 and Piva quickly made the call. The river was the and now Pagano checked, Piva bet 6,000 which left him just 3,500 chips behind and caused Pagano so sit up sharply and suck air through his teeth.
After sitting motionless for around 30 seconds he spoke to Piva in their native tongue and Pagano must have picked something up from their mini conversation as he mucked soon after.
After a somewhat lacklustre turnout of 180 yesterday (last year's Day 1a drew 270 players), we have outdone ourselves today. The official Day 1b field came to 302 runners, and the total for the combined Day 1s is 482 - not massively far off last year's field of 546, all things considered.
As you can see, of the numerous familiar faces at the Table of Death, it's only really Luca Pagano who's having a nice time so far. One Mr. Hans Erlandsson, currently at 65,000, is also presumably rather enjoying himself while he relieves the better-known pros of their precious chips.
Lex Veldhuis raised to 500 preflop and got calls in three spots to see a flop where he continued with a 1,500 bet. The first player called, the second folded but the final one made it 6,000 to go with around 18,000 behind. Veldhuis moved all-in for 22,800 total, the caller folded and the raiser snap-called turning over .
"I'm embarrassed," said Veldhuis as he gingerly turned over but the miracle suddenly was on when the turn gave him a huge number of outs. The river was the - the ultimate in blanks and the Dutchman has been eliminated.
The Frenchman missed his flight out here and is going to be around 7 hours late to the tournament which according to fellow Team PokerStars Pro Arnaud Mattern will mean he will make it to the tournament with around 12-13,000 chips remaining late in the evening...
What of last year's champion Allan Bække, you might ask? Well, further to his good fortune in winning the inaugural EPT in Saalbach-Hinterglemm last year, Bække and his girlfriend Kirstine have just been blessed with a beautiful baby girl whom they've named Karla. Understandably, Bække felt that he would rather hang out at home in Denmark this time than come back to Austria to play cards for a week.
Congratulations to the Bække clan, and we hope to see them all at other EPTs in the future.
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Pagano made a bet of 3,300 and Piva quickly made the call. The river was the 
and now Pagano checked, Piva bet 6,000 which left him just 3,500 chips behind and caused Pagano so sit up sharply and suck air through his teeth.
flop where he continued with a 1,500 bet. The first player called, the second folded but the final one made it 6,000 to go with around 18,000 behind. Veldhuis moved all-in for 22,800 total, the caller folded and the raiser snap-called turning over 
.
but the miracle suddenly was on when the 
turn gave him a huge number of outs. The river was the 
- the ultimate in blanks and the Dutchman has been eliminated.
