The action folded to the Italian Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri in the hijack seat and opened the betting to 450. Irene Baroni was in the cutoff and she flat-called. To her immediate left was the Dutchman Govert Metaal and he spoiled the party by putting in a three-bet to 1,650. Both blinds folded then Minieri four-bet to 3,600 forcing a fold from Baroni. It then looked like Metaal shoved because there was a flurry of activity and Minieri's stack was in the middle.
Poker "back in the day" had a lot more characters than poker today. Pistols and cigars have been replaced by headphones and iPads. This is mostly for the good of the game but it is refreshing, if a little controversial, when a player has a big outburst on the tournament floor.
Ilan Boujenah is undoubtedly one of the characters of the EPT and has had three or four such outbursts this season, and we've just witnessed another. We only caught the back end of it, but Boujenah came into the press room afterwards to argue his point. The main gist of what happened was:
Boujenah led for around 3,200 on a two-club flop and was raised to 6,500 by an opponent. Boujenah pulled back his betting chips and threw in two 5k chips and announced raise a second later. Konstantin Puchkov, who wasn't in the hand, got involved and said it should be a call. Two rulings were called for and it was deemed a call, not a raise as Boujenah had intended it to be.
The turn brought a third club and Boujenah's opponent led out. This prompted Boujenah to fold and jump out of his chair to tell the Russian where to go and that he should not get involved in the hand. He also shouted the quote of the season for me with: "I was doing the bluff of the year!"
The behaviour was direct and aggressive so the TD gave him half an orbit's penalty, increased to one orbit when his reaction escalated.
Boujenah understood why he was given the penalty and was glad of it as he was on tilt and needed time to calm down. He still thinks he was right and that the powers that be are against him this season. We look forward, (sort of) to the next episode.
David Vamplew opened to 450 preflop and fellow former EPT champion Michael Eiler made the call. David Cinotti then made it 1,550 from the small blind and Leonardo Cucchiarini called from the big blind. Vamplew then four-bet to 4,850 but the surprise move came from Eiler with a five-bet to 11,825. The blinds both folded and Vamplew thought for two minutes before moving all in, Eiler visibly recoiled in his seat and thought for a moment but then sighed and called.
Mathew Frankland opened to 400 from late position and both Danilo Donnini and Kilian Kremer called in the cutoff and big blind respectively. The flop was met with a check from Kremer, a 700 continuation bet from the Brit and two snap-folds from his opponents.
Lex Veldhuis had fired 850 on a board before Steven van Zadelhoff made it 2,600 to go, Veldhuis was the only caller to see the on the turn that both players checked.
The river was the and Veldhuis made an overbet of 8,400 which put his compatriot in the tank. After about five minutes van Zadelhoff said, "Maybe [I'll] flip a coin or something...?"
He pulled out a 20cent Euro coin and said, "If it's heads, I call."
He flipped the coin, it was heads and out came the call. Veldhuis showed for top two pair and won the pot - for good measure van Zadelhoff threw him the coin as well.