Whenever Matas Cimbolas, 2014 WPT Nottingham champion and finalist of the EPT Deauville, starts talking, he feels very comfortable at his table and has a workable stack. The 120,000 chips may not be huge yet, but it is just around average and the Lithuanian just joked to "be raising every hand now when you guys fold aces to me."
"Everything went wrong today, a pretty ugly day," Bert Geens said upon leaving the tournament area. He first lost a lot of chips with against pocket queens on an ace-high board with a queen on the turn. Then he couldn't win with tens versus queens and ultimately four-bet shoved less than 20 big blinds with and failed to improve.
On the table of Michael Gathy, Omar Lakhdari raised from the button and was called by both players in the blinds. On a flop of , the action was checked to the Frenchman and Lakhdari open-shoved for 40,000 with . One of the opponents in the blinds called with and Lakhdari couldn't get there anymore.
The table of Michael Gathy appears to be "a massacre" (quote from another blogger), as Jean Montury was also sent to the rail. Among the other players to be seated is Bjorn Wiesler, who started Day 2 as one of the shortest stacks. The German has however recovered nicely even though he folded from the small blind to the big blind of Gathy.
Matas Cimbolas raised from under the gun and was called by Jussi Cimbolas in the big blind. During the hand, Cimbolas already talked a lot to his opponent and they checked down the board until the river. Before it was the turn of the Finn to make his decision, Cimbolas was at it again.
"Don't forget, you are on tilt. Don't make any crazy moves." About two seconds later Matilla moved all in and Cimbolas asked for a count. It was 39,100 to call and the question "If I fold, you show your bluff?" went unanswered. Eventually Cimbolas called and was shown the .
The Lithuanian was reluctant to turn over his cards, since it was an all in showdown tournament director Christian Scalzi reminded him that all cards had to be shown. "Can't I eat my cards?" Cimbolas asked and the entire table cracked up. It was the of Cimbolas that brought both players almost even in chips.
After losing more than half of his chips early on, Dieter van Itterbeeck is almost back to where he started. The Belgian won a flip with pocket jacks versus ace-king.
Eleven PMU online qualifiers started into Day 2, however that number is now reduced to only five as Christophe Breucq and Jean Christophe Fechter were sent to the rail. Two Team Pros also remain for the French online poker site in Damien Lhommeau and Erwann Pecheux.
Tournament director Christian Scalzi has announced the chip race of the blue T-100 denominations at the end of the current level. Once level 14 is completed, there will be a 15-minute break and the dinner break takes place after the end of level 18.
Just before the end of the level, Matthias de Clercq four-bet shoved from middle position for 70,000 chips and Anthony Rodrigues called out of the small blind with pocket jacks. His fellow Belgian had but couldn't get there with the two over cards.