Thursday, 28th March 2024 15:34
Home / Uncategorized / PokerStars Championship Bahamas: Friday the 13th bubble unlucky for Kurganov

It’s Friday the 13th, a day some playfully designate as unlucky. Or not so playfully. 

Fear of the number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia. Fear of Friday the 13th gets its own name — paraskevidekatriaphobia. Meanwhile, those who fear bubbles suffer from a malady called ebulliophobia.

Players in this $25K High Roller strike us as largely fearless, with many having proven time and again in other events their general lack of concern over going out one spot shy of the cash. Thus does the bursting of the bubble in another high roller seem less momentous these days than it might been in the past. 

It’s still not much fun for the bubbler, even if the player doesn’t suffer from an unreasonable fear of bubbling a poker tournament on Friday the 13th, also known as (from this point forward) ebullioparaskevidekatriaphobia.

The bubble stretched over the dinner break in this one. Here’s the before and after.

Three away from the cash, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier’s hope of replicating his win in the first-ever $25K High Roller here in the Bahamas got snapped up like so much chum being fed to the sharks out in the aquarium. His pocket fours were snuffed by Timothy Adams’s queen-ten when a queen came.

“So seeek,” said Nacho Barbero after Grospellier had departed.

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Head to the rail, ElkY

Not long after Olivier Busquet was walking out of the tournament area shaking his head after pushing all-in with his last nearly-nine bigs behind A♠ 6♣ , getting called by Phil Laak with 10♥ 8♥ , and watching a ten on the board send him railward.

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Woe is Olivier
 

PokerStars has made it a tournament norm to balance tables just before the bubble bursts, and in this case with 24 left there was a redraw as well. 

In their new seats, they played another 20 minutes before the dinner break arrived with all 24 remaining with chips. A good-natured slowroll by Salman Behbahani versus Bryn Kenney was one highlight of that stretch. 

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Good one, Salman

Kenney was grinning after that hand, but even more so after winning a big one off of Chidwick to end the level, making Chidwick 24th of 24 in the counts with less than nine BBs for when play resumed.

Back from the break, they only played a couple of hands more before Igor Kurganov got it all in behind A♠ K♠ , having called a Byron Kaverman reraise-push with A♥ J♥ . Alas for unlucky Igor, three hearts by the turn meant he was the 24th-place finisher, the only post-dinner player to end the tournament out of the money. 

Having earlier signaled intentions to buy drinks for all once the bubble burst, Kurganov laughingly canceled such plans. 

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“Good game… and forget about those drinks, fellas”

Jennifer Tilly — a runner-up finisher in a $5,000 NL Turbo event here a couple of nights ago — had joined the PokerStars Blog on the rail to follow Phil Laak’s fortunes on the bubble with a below average stack.

The reactions were so muted when the final card hit, it wasn’t obvious at first whether we’d been watching a double-up or bust. “They’re so blasé,” she accurately observed.

Indeed. Players were certainly glad to make the money, but no one appeared overly elated about it — perhaps excepting Mustapha Kanit, who is always upbeat, anyway.

After all, none of these players seem to suffer from ebullioparaskevidekatriaphobia.

For live updates from the $25K High Roller, visit PokerNews.

Take a look at the official website of PokerStars LIVE, with tournament schedule, news, results and accommodation details for the PokerStars Championship Bahamas and all other Festival and Championship events.

Also all the information is on the PokerStars LIVE App, which is available on both Android or IOS.

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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