There are many ways to skin a cat, likewise to cover a poker tournament. Sometimes it’s tempting to stand by a single table for a round or two to get a feel for how one particular group is playing over a sustained period. But sometimes it’s also good just to fly around the room, watching a quick hand here and there and listening to the odd snippet of conversation.
Here’s what the latter approach recently yielded:
Frying Fish: “Only in France. That’s why I win the tournaments here.” This was Dave “Devilfish” Ulliot, who continued his rub-down of Vikash Dhorasoo by reaching for the French player’s wrist and checking for a pulse. Dhorasoo shrugged and continued raking the chips, won in an unknown hand but which was clearly not to Ulliot’s liking. The British player is well stacked here, though, with about 50,000. Dhorasoo has about 30,000 and also on the table, the German PokerStars qualifier Janek Schleicher has about 42,000.
Sevens again: Chin Sin Chang, the Dutch player who rocketed into the early chip lead courtesy of a flurry of sevens, is still dancing with that lucky number. Although his stack is by no means challenging the chip leaders’ anymore, he recently got a few thousand back thanks to a young American player sitting in seat seven on table seven. Chang reraised all in for his final 5,000 and took the pot when his opponent let it go. “I’m only beating king queen and below,” said the vanquished opponent. “I’m maybe beating sevens and below too.” Probably not, at least not against Chang.
Boeken grinding: Noah Boeken came over to a neighbouring table to ask his friend how many chips he had. “About ten,” came the reply. “How about you?” Boeken held up four fingers on each hand. The Team PokerStars Pro has been clinging on to that eight grand for a few hours now.
We’ve just entered the final level of the day. We’re currently putting together an approximate chip count for some of the notables in the field of 144 remaining players. The official count will be with us about two hours after the close of play.
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