There is no doubt that poker is a game that creates plenty of tough decisions. Cole Robinson and Maurizio Sepede were just presented with two of their own and the clock was needed to help them both out.
On a final board of with a chip or two above 130,000 in the pot, Cole Robinson fired out a bet of 125,000. His opponent was Nicolino Di Carlo and after weighing up his next move in his mind he raised to 250,000. Robinson took his shades off to have a think and even shared a laugh with his neighbour Ludovic Lacay. Eventually the floor was called for and Robinson folded.
Simultaneously, Maurizio Sepede had made a standard pre flop raise before Paul Ribaud three-bet to 104,000. The bet was a tournament committing bet and Sepede knew it. With anguish etched all over his face he went to move his stack into the middle many times before taking his hands off his chips and rubbing them together. The floor was called, the clock put on him and he started to pray. When the count reached 2 seconds he released his hand and Ribaud won the pot.
While having his back rigorously rubbed by a lovely looking masseuse, Darakjian opened to 30,000 under the gun and David Vamplew moved all-in from the button. Darakjian asked for a count and it was 264,000 and he made the call.
Darakjian
Vamplew
The dealer let the five cards slip from his hand and neither of them possessed the ace of jack that Vamplew was after. It did provide him with plenty more flush-outs on the turn but it just wasn't going to be the Scotsman's day.
Fabrice Soulier is up to 850,000 after he and David Rubitin saw a flop, Rubitin under the gun and Soulier in the cutoff. Rubitin bet out 50,000 but Soulier made it 117,000 to go, eliciting a relatively swift fold. Rubitin dropped to around 700,000, still a little above average.
Online qualifier Nicola Grieco raised to 42,000 from the small blind but Dario Nittolo shoved for around 430,000 from the big blind - by our reckoning, just enough to cover Grieco. Grieco tanked for some minutes, grinning all the while, and eventually folded, showing a . Now it was Nittolo's turn to smile - he showed his opponent offsuit and took the pot.
A clash of two of the smaller stacks as Georgios Manousos and Team PokerStars Pro Richard Toth moved all in preflop. Manousos having the Hungarian just covered.
Manousos:
Toth:
The board held no surprises - the Greek player's bullets holding when it came .
And that's the last Weather Girls reference for today.
Rainer Emde had reraised all in over the top of Fabrizio Cataldi with and got snap-called by the Uruguayan's . But the poker gods favoured Emde (and his pop song-sounding name) when the board came .
Emde is up to 640,000 and Cataldi drops to 460,000.