Friday, 29th March 2024 02:39
Home / Uncategorized / EPT Deauville: Day 2, level 10 updates
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Updates from day two, level 10 of EPT Deauville, brought to you by Stephen Bartley, Marc Convey, Howard Swains and Simon Young.

Latest chip counts are on the chip count page. The full payout structure can be found on the prizewinners and payout structure page. The EPT tournament structure can be found on the EPT tournament structure page.

Blinds:
Level nine: 600-1,200 (100 ante)

1.36pm: Done
That’s the end of the first level of the day. There’ll be another one right along.

1.36pm: Minieri gets some more
Watch out players at table 36 as they now have a big problem; Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri has just doubled up to around 85,000. Michael Fratty raised from mid-position and was called before Minieri moved all in for 38,400. Fratty made the call but the other player folded.

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Dario Minieri: Doubling

Minieri tabled K♣ Q♥ to Fratty’s 10♣ 10â™  . It was all safe for the Frenchman on the 3♣ 9♣ 8♥ flop but as soon as the turn came Qâ™  Fratty yelled out a expletive in French that we won’t repeated but let’s just say one would not like to stand in it. The river came 2â™  to send the pot Minieri’s way

1.35pm: 200k pot goes to Finland
Corneliu Cretu, one of the day 1a leaders, has just played a pot of about 200,000 chips. He lost it. The beneficiary was Pasi Heinanen, whose pocket queens held up against Cretu’s eights, all in pre-flop. That will put Heinanen among the leaders now.

1.32pm: USA update
There’s not many of them, but this hasn’t been a bad first level for the smattering of Americans in the Deauville field. Shane “shaniac” Schleger started the day with about 108,000 and he has increased that by at least 50 percent by the first break. He has about 160,000.

Meanwhile Melanie Weisner is also showing her mettle, recently check-raising Laurent Polito out of a pot. Polito made it 3,000 from mid-position, attacking Weisner’s blind. She called and the two of them saw a flop of Q♦ 3â™  4♥ . Weisner checked, Polito led for 3,100 and Weisner raised to 9,000. That was good.

1.31pm: Minieri gets some
While it’s throbbing with tables and players in the main tournament area, the side room is a sea of relative calm. There are only three tables left there now, and one is the home of Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri and Katja Thather.

On 8♦ 7â™  10♣ flop Alexandru Marin, Minieri and David Morante check. On the K♦ turn, Marin checks, Minieri makes it 4,600 and only Morante, a Spanish PokerStars qualifier, calls. The river was 6♦ and this time Minieri bet 11,000 – enough to force Morante to fold in disgust showing K♣ .

1.29pm: Bosen’s check mate
Germany’s Peter Bosen makes it 3,600 under the gun and it’s folded around to Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko in the big blind. Call. But just when you think action is coming, both checked the Kâ™  10♦ 7â™  flop, and the 8â™  turn, and, er, the 5♦ river. Bosen showed Q♣ Qâ™  and Kravchenko mucked quietly.

1.27pm: Portal surprised
On a 2â™  6♣ K♦ Kâ™  board, Alexia Portal puts out a 5,100 bet. Javed Abrahams stares at her looking for information. Portal stares back – and Abrahams mucks. Portal looked surprised, and collected the loot.

1.25pm: Table entertainment
Table three is a busy one, complete with three cameras and a couple of microphones, getting pictures of Arnaud Mattern and Bruno Fitoussi, and recording everything said by Alain Daien.

Mattern opened for 3,000. He has Richard Toth and Fitoussi to his immediate left but his bet gets past them and stops briefly with Torres Hermoso, who calls, as does Alain Daien on the button. If it was a flop they had in mind, though, George Gil of the United States, in a check shirt and neatly trimmed beard, was about to ruin everything, moving all in for 54,900. Mattern made an easy pass, as did Hermoso. It was left to Daien.

“Combien?” he asked, before looking at his cards again. “Good?” he asked Gil who nodded. “Better?” he said, holding up his pocket nines for Gil to see. Gil shook his head.

“Okay,” said Daien, mucking his cards.

1.20pm: Movers and shakers
Mike McDonald must have lost even more chips in this first level because he was recently all in with pocket nines against the Kâ™  Q♥ of Jeremie Guez. The board bricked and the pocket pair stood up, but McDonald’s double up left him with only 56,000, which is about 10,000 less than his starting stack.

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Mike “Timex” McDonald

Sitting to McDonald’s left is one of the newest members of Team PokerStars Pro, Vadim Markushevski, from Belarus. Markushevski’s day has been significantly brighter. He began with about 83,000 but now has at least 160,000 in similarly unknown circumstances. We know he took one small pot from McDonald, but the extent to which his rise is related to McDonald’s slump we don’t know. We’ll endeavour to find out in the break.

That’s an interesting table, actually. Also there is Cathy Hong, aka Mrs ElkY, but who is clearly a player in her own right. She won a one-table €600 satellite to earn her place in the Main Event field in Deauville, the same route she took to compete in Prague.

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Cathy Hong

Although both the ElkYs are still in, it’s Mrs ElkY who is faring far better. Hong has close to 150,000, Grospellier has less than half of that. Perhaps we’ll refer to him as Mr Hong.

1.12pm: Battle for table dominance
Ludovic Lacay and Javed Abrahams are both aggressive players and on their day like to try and dominate tables with fearless aggression. Both had good days yesterday with the Frenchman coming back with nearly 200,000 to the Brit’s stack of just under 100,000. Therefore they have the chips to try and dominate. The problem they both have with this plan is each other as they are table mates for now.

Round one goes to Abrahams. It seemed Lacay limped in and then re-raised Abrahams’ button raise. Abrahams’ answer to this was to min four-bet the re-raise. It worked as Lacay let it go. Well, he let it go physically at least but mentally maybe not as he spent the next minute or two staring down his opponent. Abrahams didn’t respond and just concentrated on stacking his chips.

1.02pm: Bansi bashed
As promised, here are details of Praz Bansi’s elimination. He lasted four hands today. An opponent raised to 3,100 before Bansi three-bet to 8,600 (out of a 34,000 stack approx). Call. His opponent then led for 10,000 on the A-J-2 flop before Bansi moved all in. Call. Bansi opened A-K but his opponent had out-flopped him with A-J. The turned and river blanked and the talented Bansi became one of our earliest casualties today.

1pm: Ainsworth on the up
Jude Ainsworth has sent Damien Rony to the rail. All in pre-flop, queens versus aces. Nothing more to be said, except that Ainsworth moves up to 130,000-odd.

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Jude Ainsworth

12.56pm: Everybody needs good neighbours
Praz Bansi is out – details to come – and his chair has been filled by Luca Pagano. Katja Thater is on the same table as Dario Minieri, while Arnaud Mattern and Richard Toth are also neighbours.

12.55pm: Vlad it’s all over
Vlad Zguba, the Team PokerStars Pro from Ukraine, started today with only 30,000. If that wasn’t a tough start to day two, then he then lost a pot to go down to 5,400. He pushed once from mid position and picked up the blinds and antes, but we now have to report that moments ago he was seen leaving the tournament floor.

12.52pm: ElkY axes one
Team PokerStars Pro ElkY has claimed his first victim of the day. Vincent Robert got all in with A-J for around 25,000, but was up against ElkY’s Q-Q – and that rarely ends well. Indeed, the board ran 8-10-7-7-3, and Robert is out. ElkY edges up to 94,000.

12.50pm: Vadim puts down a Mark
Team PokerStars Pro Vadim Markushevski laid down the law to aggressive Mike “Timex” McDonald, who sits on his right.

It was folded round to McDonald on the button, and he opened for 2,800. In the small blind, Markushevski re-raised to 9,900, but McDonald was not finished yet – he made it 17,800. Markushevski thought about it for a minute before announcing: “All in”. Now McDonald had to go in the tank, and when he climbed out he elected to fold.

12.45pm: Demon Daien
Bruno Fitoussi opened for 3,000 from middle position. The action was folded to Alain Daien who raised to 9,000. Fitoussi called and the flop came K♥ A♥ 8♦ . Daien checked allowing Fitoussi to bet 10,000. This, it turned out, was Daien’s plan all along, for now he shoved, sending Fitoussi into the tank for several minutes. Daien’s all-in was for around 15,000 more. Fitoussi only just covered that – a bad call now could leave him chronically short. All hypothetical though. Fitoussi passed.

Daien was in action again in the next hand, this time cutting out the foreplay and announcing “Tapis”, all in, behind an opening bet of 3,900 from Stephane Albertini. The action made it back to Albertini who umm-ed and ahh-ed before folding his hand. Daien, who was yesterday’s court jester, all “allez papa” is restoring some earlier strength to his stack, now up to the 80,000 mark.

12.40pm: Three barrels doesn’t get the job done
Guillaume Da Silva opened the pot with a raise from mid-position that was only called by JR Bellande on the button. Da Silva then checked to his American opponent on every street and on each of those streets Bellande fired a bet. The amounts were 4,000, 6,500 and 16,000 with the final board reading Q♦ Q♣ 2♦ K♣ 7♦ . Da Silva called all the way to the river where he check-raised all in for around 40,000.

Bellande had the look of a man who had been caught at it and let it go without getting a count of his opponent’s stack. That puts him down to 40,000.

12.35: Team Pro duel
Alexander Kravchenko and Luca Pagano were two of the best armed members of Team PokerStars Pro coming into day two. Pagano had close to 200,000 and Kravchenko close to 100,000 — and today they’ll be getting a close look at each other’s games as they’re on the same starting table.

They got involved early. Kravchenko raised to 2,900 from the cut off and Pagano called from the big blind. It was only those two to a flop of Aâ™  8â™  5â™  , which they both checked. The turn was 5♦ and Pagano check-called Kravchenko’s 2,200 enquiry. The river was 4♥ and Pagano had now seen enough. He check-folded to Kravchenko’s 4,400 bet.

12.30pm: Barron bouncing back
Tristan Clemencon and Jeff Barron got involved in a raised pot, so much so that by the time the turn was out there was about 19,000 in the middle. The four exposed cards were 3♣ 5♠ 5♥ Q♣ and Clemencon checked. Barron bet 7,000 and Clemencon called. They both slowed on the river K♥ , each checking. Barron showed J♥ J♦ and Clemencon showed his beaten 10♣ 10♠ .

Barron lost a load of his chips on the last hand of day 1a, when he woke up with pocket jacks and called a short-stacked players’ all in. His foe on that occasion had A-Q and spiked a queen on the river, taking about a third of Barron’s hard-fought chips away and sending him to the internet forums to ponder aloud whether he should have folded the jacks.

The common consensus was that he was right to call: a short-stack on the last hand of an opening day is always going to be shoving light. Anyhow, one wonders what was going through Barron’s mind when he found jacks early this morning and was greeted by hostility from Clemencon.

The good news for the Brit, however, is that this time they were best, rescuing a small portion of those chips surrendered. He came into today with 49,200 and has now taken his stack back over 60,000.

12.20pm: Violence
The overspill Salle Prive is a relative oasis of calm, but it’s unlikely that table 48 is going to be particularly sedate. Sat there are Ramzi Jelassi, Praz Bansi and Juha Helppi, all aggressive tyrants. Paul Testud and Anatoly Gurtovoy are also there — not quite as fiery but no less capable.

12.15pm: Order of play
On day two (today, in other words) we shift to 75-minute long levels. We’ll play six of those babies, with a 15 minute break in between each, and we’ll be making like trees at around 9pm.

12.10pm: Pass the time
Although the room is relatively full for this time of the day, we haven’t yet started. That gives you a chance to read today’s glittering* introduction. Play will start today at about 12.20pm – that’s my estimation.

*Not real glitter.

12pm: The full field
Play is due to start again at noon in the Casino Barriere in Deauville and for the first time the whole field of around 388* plays at the same time. That’s not to say they’re all in the same room because with a television stage now dominating the stage end of the main ballroom, the overspill Salle Prive is in use again. We’ll need to lose another handful of tables before we can snug it up in the same chamber.

It’s going to look something like this:

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Tournament room Deauville

*This is still an approximate count. There remains some discrepancy as to the number of players remaining. The casino staff are currently attempting to figure out the issues.

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