[Removed:17] received an early Christmas present when an opponent jammed the turn of a board with pocket threes. "MissOracle" called with for trips kings and the river bricked. Since then, the poker pro from New Zealand has increased his stack slightly but still isn't the chip leader at his table. Wouter Beltz has him beat by around 10,000 chips.
David Boyaciyan lost some 16,000 chips in a preflop all in showdown with pocket jacks to pocket queens and dropped below the 100k in chips again.
Thomas Muehloecker took the opposite development and has slowly but surely grinded up the stack one table over while listening to music on his headphones.
It took quite some time but the field has eventually been increased to the elusive 100 entries for Day 1a. Half a dozen players joined the rail in the past 10 minutes and another table broke with the screens now showing 59 participants remaining.
Govert Metaal raised from the button and Martin Finger called before the player in the big blind, who had previously paid off the set of threes of Metaal, jammed for 7,900. Metaal just flat-called with a pair of aces and Finger called too in order to find a flush draw on the flop with . The German got his stack in as well and the aces held up to scoop the pot and bust out two opponents.
Faraz Jaka lost a few smaller pots once again including one with top pair but the worse kicker. Ultimately, he got the last 20 big blinds in with pocket sixes and Egmond Caïro called with to win the flip. "See you tomorrow," Jaka said on the way out of the tournament area.
Denis Smit defended his big blind against a raise by David Boyaciyan to 1,200. On the flop , Smit check-raised from 1,600 to 4,350 and was called. Smit then led the turn for 6,400 to receive a call by the 2011 MCOP champion. The fell on the river and Smit moved all in for 31,250, sending Boyaciyan into the think tank for a fair amount of time.
Once Boyaciyan made the call, it was a great one with the as Smit was caught bluffing with for a busted straight and flush draw.
Many smaller pots went the way of Govert Metaal as of lately, the last one was slightly bigger though. On the river of an ace-high board, the opponent in the nine-seat paid off a valuebet worth 7,500 and then mucked once Metaal had flipped over for a turned set threes.
"Aces versus Kings against the same guy," defending Main Event champion Ruben Visser said and referred to Bart Fergiatakis over in the four seat. Visser had previously lost in the same scenario with kings to aces of Fergiatakis and now got his revenge.
The table of Mateusz Moolhuizen broke recently to balance out the remaining 67 players and one of the most recent casualties was Joris Ruys. The Dutchman had gotten his stack in preflop with pocket eights against the kings of Rens Feenstra.
An eight on the flop was a relief, but it was followed by a king as well and the one outer never came.
board with pocket threes. "MissOracle" called with 
for trips kings and the river bricked. Since then, the poker pro from New Zealand has increased his stack slightly but still isn't the chip leader at his table. Wouter Beltz has him beat by around 10,000 chips.
to win the flip. "See you tomorrow," Jaka said on the way out of the tournament area.
, Smit check-raised from 1,600 to 4,350 and was called. Smit then led the 
turn for 6,400 to receive a call by the 2011 MCOP champion. The 
as Smit was caught bluffing with 
for a busted straight and flush draw.
for a turned set threes.
