German online grinder Martin Mulsow last night won his bit of poker silverware putting to bed his UKIPT Cork runner-runner nightmares. Read about it at the PokerStars Blog.
The PokerStars Blog was asked yesterday whether players should be forced into interviews from the media. It really doesn't work out like that... The PokerStars Blog explains.
James Mitchell is sat with almost half a million chips over in the far, dark corner of the room. We will endeavour to get an accurate count and a story of how he acquired such a monster stack as soon as we can, but Mitchell has taken it upon himself to create giant towers of chips instead of stacking them in the standard stacks of 20!
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
470,000 | 260,000 |
Ahmed Abd El Fatah had enjoyed the chip lead earlier in the afternoon after becoming the first player to 300,000. He's slipped back a bit over the last couple of hours, but just grabbed a few more back to push his stack back over 200k.
It was a blind-vs.-blind hand that saw El Fatah and Konstantin Tolokno together build a big pot of nearly 60,000 before the flop, then Tolokno checking from the small blind when the first three community cards came 
. El Fatah took that opening to fire a bet of 30,000, and after a tank Tolonko let his hand go.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
206,000 | 18,000 |
|
116,000 | 58,100 |
Mathew Frankland opened to 5,000 from under the gun then called when Arthur Olczyk, seated to Frankland's direct left, three-bet to 10,600.
Despite the opening raises coming from early position, that was the last of the aggression as the players checked down the 
flop, 
turn and 
river.
Olczyk showed 
and Frankland mucked.
Vanessa Rousso put her tournament at risk by shoving on tournament chip leader, Zimnan Ziyard, but it worked out okay for her.
The Team PokerStars Pro opened from the button and Ziyard called from the small blind to look at the 
flop appear. He check-called a 5,500 bet to head to the 
turn where he checked to face an all in shove worth 40,400.
Ziyard seemed a little confused, checked his cards, asked Rousso to verify her stack (meaning she had to lift her chin of her folded forearms to answer) and then elected to pass.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
348,500 | 8,500 |
|
66,000 | -82,000 |
It's fabulous for Fabrice Soulier who was all in with the worst hand in a three-way pot against Pascal Aznar and Benjamin Truzman.
Soulier:
Aznar: 
Truzman: 
The board ran out 
and Soulier won the main pot, trebling up to about 80,000 while Aznar took the bigger side pot to push him up to 145,000 and Truzman dropped to about 200,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
200,000 | 65,000 |
|
145,000 | 127,100 |
|
80,000 | 50,000 |
Following a button raise from [Removed:146], Istvan Birizdo shoved all in from the small blind for about 50,000 more. Guerfi tanked for sometime, glancing up at the big board at one point to see that 180 players remained and they were 60 eliminations away from the money.
Finally Guerfi called. Birizdo showed 
and Guerfi .
The flop came 
, then the turn brought the 
to give Guerfi flush outs, overcards, and an open-ended straight draw. The dealer then burned a card and delivered the river — the 
— thus bringing one of Guerfi's many outs to give him a straight and send Birizdo railward.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
276,000 | 257,200 |
|
Busted |
The winner of this very event in 2011, Lucien Cohen, has been nursing a short stack for the most of Day 2 but he now has a little more room to maneuver thanks to doubling up through Mikael Bilan.
The chips went into the middle of a 
flop, Cohen holding and Bilan 
. After burning a card the dealer placed the 
on the turn, cementing Cohen's lead. The completed the board and Cohen saw his stack swell to 64,500.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
64,500 | 26,100 |
After Andriy Lyubovetskiy had checked the turn of an 
board, Zimnan Ziyard made a bet of 12,500 but Lyubovetskiy check-raised to 27,000.
The former EPT Loutraki champion made a quick call to see the on the river but his Ukrainian opponent continued with a bet of 36,500. Ziyard pushed out a stack of 90,000 in response and Lyubovetskiy instantly mucked.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
340,000 | 178,000 |
|
160,000 | 132,000 |