Mohsin "chicagocards1" Charania, a former champion here at European Poker Tour Monte Carlo who also has a pair of WPT wins to his name, just had his tournament ended by Eros Nastasi. A player opened for 1,500 in middle position, and Charania shipped all in for 6,725 in the cutoff. Action folded to big blind Eros Nastasi, who called, and the opener dumped his hand.
Charania:
Nastasi:
The Italian had Charania dominated, and the board ran out , booting Charania from the tournament.
Nikolay Komcharokov limped from early position and Jeremy Ausmus did the same from the hijack. Senh Ung called from the button, Brazil's Habib Esses came along from the small blind, and then the player in the big raised to 2,500. Komcharokov called, as did Ausmus and Ung, before Esses three-bet all in for 9,600 from the small blind.
The player in the big blind called, Komcharokov got out of the way, and Ausmus made the call. Ung came along and three active and one all-in player saw the flop, which checked around. The action repeated itself on the turn, and then Ausmus bet 20,000 after the big blind checked the . Ung folded and so did the big blind.
Ausmus showed the for trips, and it was good as Esses only held .
With less than ten big blinds, Ronnie Bardah had been looking for a hand to double up with. He moved all-in from the button with only the blinds remaining in the hand. Shyam Srinivasan was in the small blind and called and the big blind got out of the way.
Bardah:
Srinivasan:
Bardah was ahead and was poised to double up. The board ran out and Bardah doubled up, giving him roughly 20 big blinds to work with for the rest of the day.
We found Dario Sammartino on the button, heads up against the big blind on a completed board of . His opponent cut chips for a minute then told the dealer he was all in. Sammartino tanked for a few minutes, while his opponent kept himself busy. The player grabbed what appeared to be a pentagonal Rubik's Cube-like puzzle that doubled as a card protector and began spinning it, attempting to line up the colors.
Moments later, he had four or five of the colors lined up perfectly and proudly pointed it out to Sammartino. "Good," he simply said with a smile.
Someone called the clock on the Super High Roller fourth-place finisher, and he continued to think through the countdown. Finally, the tournament director reached zero and the hand was dead.
A short-stacked Philipp Gruissem moved all in for a bit under 10,000 and received a call from Samy Salah. The rest of the field folded and Gruissem discovered the bad news.
Gruissem:
Salah:
Gruissem was in need of some big-time help, but it wasn't in the cards as the board ran out a clean .