The action folded around to Sergio Aido in the small blind who made it 4,800 to go. Alex Keating defended from the big blind and the two players were off to the flop of .
Aido continued for 3,000 and Keating called to see the on the turn. Aido was trying to tell the story that he had the best hand with another bet of 12,500 and Keating finally believed him as he dumped his cards in the muck.
A hand was in progress pre-flop between Alex Foxen and Shyngis Satubayev.
Foxen was out of position with 30,000 in front of him, but was facing a re-raise to 75,000 from Satubayev. Foxen eventually folded allowing Satubayev to take down the pot and move up to around 300,000 in chips.
A completed board of was spread out across the felt and the hole cards of Joao Simao and Pavel Plesuv were already face up. There was only around 25,000 in the pot, but each player had more than 100,000 in front of them.
Simao's holding was for a full house while Plesuv revealed for the nut flush. Simao barely had Plesuv covered and raked in the entire pot to move into the current chip lead.
Dario Sammartino has chipped up considerably since the dinner break and now sits on a stack of 245,000 which at this stage is a contender for the overall chip lead.
Meanwhile, Davidi Kitai was facing an all in from Igor Yaroshevskyy on a board with around 40,000 in the middle.
Yaroshevskyy was all in for 29,000 and Kitai let his time bank run all the way down before eventually folding.
There was a raise to 4,000 in the cutoff and Ramin Hajiyev called on the button. Benjamin Pollak shoved all in for 27,200 in the big blind which got the cutoff to fold but Hajiyev had a harder time.
"The math isn't there," Hajiyev said. But Pollak continued to plead for a call. "But, because it's you," as Hajiyev slammed in a call.
Benjamin Pollak:
Ramin Hajiyev:
"You'll have at least 50k after this hand no matter what," Robert Mizrachi stated, indicating Pollak would head to the registration desk if he were to lose.
The board ran out and Pollak held on to find a double up.
Bart Lybaert opened to 3,600 in early position and James Chen just called in the cutoff. Timothy Adams three-bet to 12,500 from the small blind Lybaert quickly folded.
Chen, on the other hand, stuck in a four-bet to 26,000. Adams used his entire 30 seconds before announcing a five-bet all in. Chen was the player with the shorter stack and he used one of his time banks before sending his cards to the muck.
The tournament clock has just ticked over to 500 entries (including 108 entries). This makes it the largest €10,300 since 2017 when the tournament attracted 557 entries.
With late registration open until the start of Day 2, it remains to be seen just how close to the 2017 mark we can get!