A star-hungry crowd continues to swamp the rail by Phil Hellmuth, sinisterly awaiting his eruption like vampires in need of a fix.
At the moment, they may well get their wish as Hellmuth is growing more frustrated by the hand, and now has just 1,000 after a recent encounter with his fresh-faced neighbour.
With the young unknown raising the button to 300, Hellmuth made the call from the small blind - albeit after, seemingly, contemplating a raise - thus taking us to a flop.
Both the flop and turn were checked down, but the button made a bet of 300 on the river. Hellmuth immediately called before being shown .
Hellmuth looked rather disgusted, and held back his cards as the table waited patiently. Then, eventually, he revealed the and flung them into the muck with a disgruntled look on his face. He didn't explode, or pass derogatory comment, but you could sense that one more poke would do it.
A multi-way pot ensued on one of the tables in the Shadow Bar room where the flop came down . Action was checked by the first bunch of players to Andrew Lichtenberger and he fired 425. Only one of his opponents called to see the peel off on the turn.
Lichtenberger's lone opponent left was first to act and he fired out 1,600. Lichtenberger mucked and saw his stack slip to 6,600.
Hoyt Corkins has just been eliminated getting into a raising war with the admirable against Priyan de Mel (who had lost almost half his stack previously). De Mel had but managed to get there on a board to eliminate his opponent.
Roberto Romanello is currently cutting a forlorn figure on the rail as he sweats friend Priyan de Mel. Romanello had been holding on a Jack-high flop against another player's random King-high which managed to spike, winning a 10,000 chip pot and sending the Welshman to the rail.
We've previously reported the predominant reason for Priyan de Mel's ascent, but he recently added a few more tales into the mix.
In one hand, he called a preflop raise with before calling a continuation bet on a flop. On the turn, de Mel called again, but then turned aggressor by leading for 1,050 upon hitting his flush on the river. His opponent moved all in for 1,500, and de Mel snapped him off.
"I think he had a set in the end," mused de Mel, "but I'm surprised he didn't just call on the end and save himself the extra chips."
"There was another hand," he continued, "where I raised to 250 with and another player moved all in for 1,750. 'Do you want a call?' I asked, and he said 'no'. I told him that I'm being genuine and will call if he wants me to, but he asked me to fold, so I did, and he showed ."
I proposed the theory of lying, to which de Mel replied" "Well, I wouldn't mind, because this is poker, but I think the table would hate me for it."
If you read the feature post we did on Phil Ivey a little while ago, you'll know he doesn't have the best of records at the WSOP Europe. Despite being able to get himself off to a great start and more than triple his stack by the first break, Ivey has since dusted ALL of it off. The last bit of his stack, about 6,000 or so, went to Chance Kornuth who was recently moved to Ivey's table.
Ivey opened to 400 according to Kornuth, who flatted on the button before the flop came down . Ivey continuation bet 600 and Kornuth raised to 1,650. Ivey shoved for roughly 6,000 and Kornuth met him with a call, holding the for top two pair. Ivey held pocket aces, but they weren't looking too good at this point.
The turn and river both blanked off and failed to put Ivey back in front. Kornuth had Ivey covered by a bit and the eight-time gold bracelet winner was up and out the door. Kornuth has assumed the pole position here on Day 1b thanks to this pot with 16,700 chips.
Andrew Teng has been eliminated from today's event, running jacks into aces. The assassin? 1996 World champion Huck Seed, who is now one of the early pace-setters with 10,000.
Upon hitting the rail, Teng squirting hand lotion on his hands, so I fear he may be looking to grind back his buy-in by joining the Ibiza Angels massaging team.
Registration for Day 1b has been closed for about an hour, and the staff has finished triple-checking all the paperwork.
Officially 195 runners turned up for this middle starting day, putting our combined field at 397 with one starting day left. The staff has been optimistic of reaching 731 runners to make this the largest-ever UK tournament, but that will be a tall task for tomorrow, requiring a capacity crowd of 334 players to turn up on Sunday. We shall see.
In any event, we've already lost about eight tables worth of players in just over three levels. The board shows 120 left in the field.
button in Safari
flop.
turn were checked down, but the button made a bet of 300 on the 
river. Hellmuth immediately called before being shown 
.
and flung them into the muck with a disgruntled look on his face. He didn't explode, or pass derogatory comment, but you could sense that one more poke would do it.
peel off on the turn.
against Priyan de Mel (who had lost almost half his stack previously). De Mel had 
but managed to get there on a 
board to eliminate his opponent.
thanks to a ten on the river.
on a Jack-high flop against another player's random King-high which managed to spike, winning a 10,000 chip pot and sending the Welshman to the rail.
flop. On the 
turn, de Mel called again, but then turned aggressor by leading for 1,050 upon hitting his flush on the 
river. His opponent moved all in for 1,500, and de Mel snapped him off.
