No more players can enter the Eureka Main Event! The organisers counted up all the players from each starting flight, figured in all the people who won seats but didn’t show up and are currently working out all the prize pool information. That will be announced later on but we can bring you a breakdown of all nationalities playing here in Hamburg via the visual medium of PokerStars’ world famous pie chart:

A German dominated pie chartPlaying a short stack is a vital part of tournament poker. PokerStars tournaments are often filled with a big portion of online qualifiers and those who ply their trade online are generally better equipped at playing short stacks than those who concentrate on the live arena.

One player who knows how to play a short stack is Irishman, Dara O’Kearney. The serial online qualifier – usually for UKIPTs – but a package winner here for Hamburg, lost a big pot earlier on and had to rely on his short stack game. He picked his spots carefully and managed to get a three-bet shove through but sometimes a clash of big hands in inevitable.

He was sat in the cutoff with A♣ K♠ and was facing a raise to 1,500 from Milen Ivanov a couple of seats to his right. He shoved and Ivanov called with J♣ J♦ and survived a 10♠ 7♠ 10♦ 10♠ 4♦ board.

O’Kearney (left), “So I had ace-king…..”If only he could learn to play all ins as well as Natalie Hof. She was down to 7,200 chips when she found the hand she was looking for – pocket kings. She moved all in and her small-blinded opponent called with A♣ Q♣ . The Friend of PokerStars flopped a set but the small blind had big equity with a flush draw. The flush duly came in on the turn but Hof made quads on the river to stay alive. Since then, she’s managed to increase her stack a lot more to 28,500.

Elton sung his last songHof first made her name in Germany on a poker show connected to TV Total, a famous German entertainment show. There was a man called Elton playing as a PokerStars.de Sponsored player today and he also made his name on the TV Total show. He made a guest appearance and was so popular that they kept him on and ten years later he’s still part of the show and has had his own show, as well as appearing on a Poker Night show with Hof, other celebrities and a PokerStars qualifier. His tournament has come to an end though after he ran ace-ten into an opponent’s pocket aces for his last 35,000.

Dzmitry Urbanovich finally took his seat after the dinner break but he has something wrong with his neck, or so it seemed. He head was constantly titled down towards his lap and he barely looked up to follow the action, just doing so to muck his cards when needed. Closer inspection revealed that he was full engrossed in a strategy game on his iPad. His stack had shrunk to 17,300, not that far behind Ole Schemion as it turned out. The German’s stack has dropped back to 25,000 when it was as high as 65,000 earlier on.

Dzmitry UrbanovichSelected chip counts:

Timo Schneider – 145,000
Steven pipe – 120,000
Martin Torper – 94,000
Teemu Kailasvou – 98,000
Ale Sameeian – 85,000
Mohamed Habhab – 95,000
January Heitmann – 51,000
Philipp Combatants – 22,000
David Lappin – 33,300
Elena Stover – 23,000
Milan Rabsz – 74,000
Jonas Lauck – 32,000
Ismail Kalkan – 47,000
Dzmitry Urbanovich – 16,500
Stefan Schill Habel – 26,000

Bustouts: Milan Cicka, Arne Ruge, Sebastian Benz, Suleiman Jabour, Marius Gierse, Gregor Walter husband, Tobias Berben Armin Vo, Paraschos Stavridis, Lucas Meyer, Jonas Jeschke, Marcus Rölz, Marco Hohmann, Lars Jürgens, Ingo Hackbarth, Sven Leu and Robert Heidorn.

Eureka Hamburg Key Facts:
– Players begin with 25,000 chips (an increase from Season 4’s 20,000)
– Blinds start at 25/50
– Twelve 45-minute levels make up Day 1D
– Day 1D is a sell 200-player out

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