Kevin MacPhee and Mike McDonald have been sat along side each other for the last few hours, both hunting the elusive second EPT title. They've had the table in hysterics with their behaviour as well. McDonald raised from under-the-gun and MacPhee defended his big blind. Neither player would look away from each other as both (jokingly) stared with serious looks across their faces. The flop fell and MacPhee checked dark rather than stare at the flop. McDonald now had to look at the flop before he bet 18,000 and went back to staring at his opponent. It was at this point that both players cracked and starting laughing, unable to keep up the pretense. MacPhee folded.
There was no laughing from MacPhee a few minutes later. He four-bet all-in for 213,000 with ace-queen suited after Ivan Tikhov had opened to 17,000 and another player had three-bet to 41,000. Tikhov had aces, made the call, and ended the double dream for the American.
Taylor Paur has nearly 900k in chips after he got Canadian Jason Duval off a hand in a big pot.
Around 300,000 had made it into the middle by the time the river had been dealt to leave a board. Paur was in the big blind and announced that he was all-in. The bet was effectively 236,000 as that's what Duval had left. The Canadian PokerStars qualifier took his time before slowly sliding his hands into the muck.
It's all over for Alex Kravchenko, he reshoved with against Ricardo Ibanez Rodriguez' but neither of them hit. Like his fellow Team Pros, Kravchenko will be hoping to do better at EPT Campione next week.
Olivier Busquet has been grinding a short stack for the better part of two days, an admirable effort given that he had just 7,700 at the 500/1,000 level. Busquet was finally eliminated when he pushed all in with and found Yordan Dimitrov behind him holding - the latter holding on a board of .
We're down to 32 players now, and we've just broken another table. In the first hand in the new seats, we picked up a pot between Michel Dattani and João Paulo Simão. The latter was the one who opened with the first raise, and he ended up four-bet shoving when Dattani played back at him. Dattani put his last 255,000 into the middle, and he was in a dominating spot for a double.
Showdown
Simão:
Dattani:
Simão was nervously grinning at the spot he'd gotten himself into, and he piped up, "Going to need some help here."
Just as he spoke, the flop came barreling out to end the hand right there. Simão got greedy as the hit fourth street, and he asked the dealer for the jack of that suit just for good measure. The river was the , and the regular old queen-high flush is still plenty good enough for Simão.
He's sent Dattani off in 32nd place, chipping up toward the million mark in the process.
Nicolas Levi has been doing a lot of grinding today with a below average stack. He still has below average but has twice as much as before after making a move, and getting lucky, versus Ricardo Ibanez Rodriguez.
The Spaniard opened from the button before Levi three-bet all-in from the big blind. Rodriguez was thinking what to do when Levi piped up with, "What does the diamond say to do?" in reference to a little diamond ball Rodriguez was holding.
Rodriguez put the ball up to his ear and very quickly announced, "Call".
Levi said after the hand that he had hoped his speech would prompt a fold as he only had . Rodriguez tabled king-jack but the Frenchman hit a queen to stay alive.
The very last hand to finish before the break saw Javier Etayo fire out 20,000 on a flop before Mike McDonald raised to 62,000. Etayo then pushed all in for just over 200,000. McDonald took about 30 seconds and then made the call.
Etayo:
McDonald:
Etayo quietly whispered continually for a seven in Spanish but the poker gods were't listening when the came on the turn. The river was the and the former chip leader was now out.