October 28th, 2008
Casualties of war on the rise…
The final and 3rd break of day 1A has just finished and the players have just returned to the felt to continue their chase for an EPT triumph.
Unfortunately for 2 of our Ongame Network players, the PokerStars.com EPT Budapest ends here. Midway through the last level when the blinds were 150/300 with an ante of 25, Jim Nordman of PAF received 2 “ladies” from the dealer (no need to raise an eyebrow…I’m talking about pocket Queens). Jim called the blind of 300 and action passed around to the Small Blind who then raised to 2k. Jim pushed all-in with 6,5k and the Small Blind called. Jim shows his pocket Q♣ Q♦…Small Blind shows…pocket K♠ K♣ (of course!). With the flop, turn and river refusing to help out the PAF player from Finland, the “cowboys” claim another victim and Jim was eliminated.
Anders Johansson (the only remaining player representing PAF) seated over at table 9, found himself in a real bad way with only 2k in chips. The “1 minute until the break” call went out from the tournament director just as Anders looked down at his “ducks” ( 2♥ 2♠ ). Being on the button and feeling the surmounting pressure of needing a better stack, he makes his move all-in. There’s a caller and the cards go on their backs. What’s Anders up against? Any guesses? Anyone? Yeah, you got it…”cowboys”…again!! There was no miracle flop…no duck on the turn…and the poker gods were obviously not listening as the river came up blank. Anders was out and those “cowboys” that keep showing up, take another Ongame Network scalp!
With 3 players left from the Ongame Network in Day 1A still playing away, Robin Ylitalo now has a healthy stack of around 30k, courtesy of a Ace high Spade Flush earning him 10k. Pantelis Pavlis has suffered a bit of a set back in his challenge for EPT glory, as his once 37k stack has been chopped down to 18k. Danish player, Danny Rasmussen, is still sitting at table 4 with about 9k in chips. He informs me that the “crazy” phase that infected the table earlier has now passed, although he continues to get cold cards. He’s managing to keep his stack up though by stealing the blinds every so often. Sneaky!
The end of Day 1A is drawing to an end. After 6 hours of play, 139 players left on 16 tables and the average stack sitting around 18.8k, there’s roughly about 2 hours of play left. Can the players hold out for 2 more hours? Can the players increase their chip amount over the next 2 hours? More importantly, will the blogger be able to keep up with all the action for 2 more hours? Oh the drama has returned…
