A player who's probably Nichlas Mattsson (the hood is rather too effective) just doubled through after getting his whole stack in preflop (18,225) with . The action started in early position with a raise to 900, then Jean Thorel raised to 2,300 - Mattsson was the cold four-bettor pre to 6,225. The original raiser folded, but Thorel, checking out his opponent's shorter than average stack, threw in a jumble of chips setting him in. He was happy to oblige, and happy to see Thorel with .
Thorel hit a jack on the flop but missed improvement on the turn and river. He's still on a decent 56,000 stack, while Mattsson is on 40,000.
Time seemed to slow down on a flop when button Florian Langmann raised Salvatore Bonavena's 1,000 bet to 3,200. Third flop-seer Vanessa Rousso passed in the small blind, but Bonavena counted out his chips, played with them, did some staring. The minutes ticked by but finally Bonavena passed, raising Langmann up to 27,000 while he remains on 33,000.
By the by, the total number of runners for Day 1b is 384. Added on to yesterday's field of 302, that makes a grand total of 686 runners for this year's Grand Final. Numbers are indeed down on last year, but perhaps not as far down as might have been expected after recent events in the poker world.
While this has been a bad level for Team Pros (Negreanu then Victoria Coren busting, the latter to Joe Hachem when her AA failed to hold vs. his flush draw, Johnny Lodden down to under 10,000), one is still riding high (although down slightly from his 84,000 peak): Viktor Blom.
Elsewhere the eccentric Andy Black was up to 78,000 at the end of the last level, but has dropped into the upper sixties himself now. Most recently spotted asking his right hand side neighbour if he could check his passport (he agreed) and flipping off a blogger asking him to do an angry face for a picture. This was better than he expected.
Grizzled veteran UK pros Neil Channing and Roland de Wolfe have been slightly quieter than usual but they saw a 3-way pot with another player where everyone checked the flop. De Wolfe and Channing checked the turn and the other player fired out 2,100, De Wolfe quickly folded and got back to his marathon massage that he was having but Channing made the call to see the board pair the river.
Channing checked again and his opponent continued the aggression with a bet of 9,850 - Channing gave it some momentary thought but decided to muck his cards instead.
James Akenhead and Nacho Barbero were at the turn when we arrived, the board reading . Akenhead in the small blind bet out 3,000, but Barbero raised to 8,500, eliciting an eventual fold from the Brit.
Akenhead is now at 12,500, less than half what he started the day with. Barbero meanwhile is up to very impressive 35,000 - impressive because at one point early in the day he was down to just 4,500 or so, making him our Climber Of The Day.
Nenad Medic, whom we just discovered in the far corner of the room (it wasn't like we found him under a rock or something) just won a decently sized pot after he bet 6,600 on the river of a board. His opponent sighed, making a crying call and the bracelet-winning Canadian turned over for quads which was obviously good.
button in Safari
. The action started in early position with a raise to 900, then Jean Thorel raised to 2,300 - Mattsson was the cold four-bettor pre to 6,225. The original raiser folded, but Thorel, checking out his opponent's shorter than average stack, threw in a jumble of chips setting him in. He was happy to oblige, and happy to see Thorel with 
.
flop but missed improvement on the 
turn and river. He's still on a decent 56,000 stack, while Mattsson is on 40,000.
flop when button Florian Langmann raised Salvatore Bonavena's 1,000 bet to 3,200. Third flop-seer Vanessa Rousso passed in the small blind, but Bonavena counted out his chips, played with them, did some staring. The minutes ticked by but finally Bonavena passed, raising Langmann up to 27,000 while he remains on 33,000.
flop. De Wolfe and Channing checked the 
turn and the other player fired out 2,100, De Wolfe quickly folded and got back to his marathon massage that he was having but Channing made the call to see the board pair the 
river.
. Akenhead in the small blind bet out 3,000, but Barbero raised to 8,500, eliciting an eventual fold from the Brit.
