Sweden’s Micke Norinder was dealt some early excitement, moving all-in armed with a pair of aces. His opponent called the all-in, also armed with a pair of aces.

“Argh!” a noise that comes naturally to most players… “That’s a bad beat! Now you know I don’t bluff, ok?”

It wasn’t all bad news for Norinder who not only found those aces, but a pair of kings and ace-queen, all within the first five hands. Courtesy of those the Swede is up to to 15,000 after half an hour.

The railbirds in the tournament room have numerous options open to them; a position next to Boris Becker’s table perhaps, or one overlooking the action around Ivan Demidov. Or there’s table one, the real centre court of day 1b, where a two-bracelet player just tangled with a one-bracelet player – Jesper Hougaard and Annette Obrestad risking a potential jewellery fiasco.

There were five players to the [KD]-[6S]-[7H] flop. Bertrand Grospellier checked from the small blind, Steffan Dam from the big. Hougaard made it 525 which saw off all but Obrestad, sitting always with text book good posture, bolt upright in her chair, her fingers holding her cards a fingernail’s distance off the baize. She called, slowly moving her hand to add her share to the pot, the price to see a [9S] on the turn.

All this was played to the klacking of high powered cameras, something both players seemed oblivious to. Hougaard was thinking of nothing but his next move, a bet of 1,500 which only made the cameras switch to rapid fire, while Obrestad maintained her typical stiocism, pausing a few beats before calling. Hougaard turned over pocket eights prompting Obrestad to fold.

These are just the first hands to be played on this table but few will go by without someone watching.

In a related matter, Gus Hansen has yet to arrive…

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