Any parent or schoolteacher will likely know the feeling: You’re in an adjacent room and are aware that it’s absolute bedlam next door. Children are bouncing each other’s heads off the furniture and and are one step away from demolishing the place entirely.
But the minute you open the door and stroll in to survey the carnage, it stops. Everyone is a quiet as a mouse in a cathedral library.
That seems to be the story here at Eureka Prague, where only 170 players remain in the tournament. Actually, the board said 170 when I first entered the room, but two people had just been eliminated from the first table I saw–the dealer shouted “Seat open” and raised two tickets above her head–so it’s probably down to about 160 now.
I didn’t see what happened in that coup, however, and the subsequent wander through the tables was highly uneventful too. It was enough to notice three players with more than a million chips: Vladas Tamasauskas (1.3 million), Idan Raviv (1.2 million) and Jonatan Hellman (1 million), but everywhere around the room was checks.
(That’s “checks” not Czechs. Although there were a few of those too.)
Case in point: Andrea Dato limped (8,000) from UTG+1 and Frank Williams, one seat to his left, raised to 28,000. (A two bet?) Everyone else folded it back to Dato and he called.
The flop came 4♣ 8♠7♠and they both checked. The turn came 9♣ and they both checked. The river came 6♣ and Dato bet 18,000. Williams folded.
On to the next one. Keith Christie opened to 20,000 from the hijack and Pierre Neuville three-bet from the button to 60,000. Christie called. Those two saw a flop of 9♠2♦ 8♣ and Christie checked. Neuvilled shoved for about 150,000 more. Christie folded.
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Next!
Nusret Atmaca opened to 16,000 from under the gun and Maximos Pertsinidis called from the small blind. That tempted the aforementioned big stack Tamasauskas to call from the big blind and three players saw a flop.
It was Q♦ Q♣ 3♠. Check, check, check.
The turn was the K♦ and they went check, check, check.
The river was the 2♣ and Pertsinidis bet 16,000. Tamasauskas folded, but Atmaca called. Pertsinidis flipped over K♠4♠and won.
Surely Conv wouldn’t let us down like this, would he. Not Conv! Sure enough, over we trudged and Conv was giving Ismael Bojang the needle. “Table just got softer,” Conv “Marc” Convey said to Bojang.
Bojang chuckled, but Convey was soon putting his chips where his mouth was, open shoving when folded to him in the hijack. Bojang, in the cut off, folded and it passed through both blinds too.
There is still chaos afoot at the Eureka Prague Main Event, and players are still getting involved in big pots. But when a Conv steal of the blinds is the most significant action, you know you’re not really seeing the most of it.
Stop press: Conv is out! No! He found ace-queen and stuck it in after Quentin Lecomte opened. Lecomte had eights and hit another on the flop. Conv finished in 143rd for €2,420. The sweat is over.
German language coverage is on PokerStarsBlog.de. All the schedule information is on the EPT App, which is available on both Android or IOS.
The Eureka coverage is all handily organized on the Eureka Prague page.
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