On any other day the PokerStars Blog wouldn’t have been able to get so close to table two. If Vanessa Selbst and George Danzer hadn’t be plonked at the same table it’s almost certain that table two would have been playing out under the bright lights of #EPTLive.
As it is the Selbst/Danzer collaboration had kept table two from top spot and enabled the blog to take a closer look.
Albert Daher, Lebanon, 117,000
Johnny Lodden, Norway, Team PokerStars Pro, 56,600
Vyacheslav Stoyanov, Bulgaria, PokerStars player, 265,700
Oliver Price, UK, PokerStars player, 125,500
Piotr Pietrzak, Poland, PokerStars player, 41,200
Jari Haanniemi, Finland, PokerStars player, 191,700
Balasz Botond, Hungary, PokerStars player, 223,500
Paul Newey, UK, 76,000
Unfortunately Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden would be eliminated within the first 30 minutes of play. His exit hand was a classic race, the Norwegian three-bet shoved for a little under 20 big blinds with pocket tens and found a call from Vyacheslav Stoyanov who held A♥ Q♥ . The J♥ 8♥ 6♣ 9♣ 6♥ board eventually favoured the overcards and Lodden was on his way.
It didn’t get any easier for the inhabitants of table two though as Lodden was replaced by Swedish superstar Alexander Roumeliotis. Tough crowd indeed. By the time we arrived Balasz Botond, who earlier this week won the Eureka4 Prague main event, had chipped up to around 390,000 and was the table chip leader. His boost came from cracking the aces of Jari Hanniemi with pocket jacks.
Of course Botond was not the only player at the table who’d had a deep run in Prague this week. Paul Newey finished second to Leonid Markin in the €50,000 Super High Roller whilst Day 1A of the Main Event was playing out. But with just 25 players to go until the money Newey found himself in a very different situation to Botond. The Brit was down to around 46,000 – around 15 big blinds – and was one of the shortest stacks in the room. Indeed Newey would bust out less than ten spots from the money when his nines lost out to the king-jack of Stoyanov when the Bulgarian flopped a jack.
After Roumeliotis replaced Lodden he wasted little time in getting into the action, calling a 7,000 chip raise from Jari Haanniemi in position. The 9♣ 6♥ Q♦ flop checked through and the 10♠fell on the turn. After Haanniemi checked, Roumeliotis bet 14,000 and the Finn made the call. The 6♣ completed the board, after a bit of tank time Roumeliotis bet 34,000 and again Haanniemi called. The Swedish high stakes cash game player showed A♠Q♥ and it was good, which left Haanniemi with just 56,000.
Whilst he was ruminating on that loss Albert Daher, whose biggest lifetime cash came when he finished second to Dominik Panka in the €10,000 High Roller at EPT10 Deauville, opened the pot to 6,000 from the hijack and picked up calls from Roumeliotis and Piotr Pietrzak in the big blind. On the 7♥ Q♦ J♣ flop Pietrzak moved all-in for around 40,000 into a pot of around 22,500, which was enough. “Do you call if I move all-in pre-flop?” asked Pietrzak of Daher. His response was inaudible, but whatever it was it made Roumeliotis giggle.
Throughout these two hands Botond had been having a conversation on his phone slightly away from the table, but he was back in his seat to fold the next hand and it passed all the way to Oliver Price, who was on the button. He opened to 6,000 on the button and Haanniemi defended his big blind. It was checked all the way to the river on a 6♦ J♦ 5♦ Q♥ 7♦ board, Price bet 8,000 on the river and he took the pot.
For now table two is one of the outer tables, but surely it’s coming to an EPTLive feed soon?
Follow all the action from the Main Event on the Main Event page. There’s hand-by-hand updates and chip counts in the panel at the top of the page and feature pieces below. Also, EPT Live is up and running. Follow the action at PokerStars.tv.
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