LEVEL UP: BLINDS 600-1,200, ANTE 100
1.26pm: More bad news for Minieri
Today is just not going Dario Minieri's way. Not long after losing a huge pot with jacks into aces he has just had to fold a three-bet to a shove that came from the direction of Konstantin Bucherl. The German had opened...
LEVEL UP: BLINDS 600-1,200, ANTE 100
1.26pm: More bad news for Minieri
Today is just not going Dario Minieri's way. Not long after losing a huge pot with jacks into aces he has just had to fold a three-bet to a shove that came from the direction of Konstantin Bucherl. The German had opened from late position to 2,400 and Minieri had three-bet to 6,900. Burcherl moved all-in for 37,000 total and the aggressive Italian was forced to muck his hand.
That's the end of the level and the players have a 15-minute break. -- RD
1.22pm: Thorson feeling the cold
William Thorson is down to 11,000 chips after losing a cooler hand to his neighbour Dominik Traeger. The action folded around to the Swede in the SB who completed and then called Traeger's raise to 3,000. The flop came [jc][8c][qs] and Thorson check-called a 2,000 bet. The turn came [5c] and a series of bets and min-raises saw the hand reach a showdown with the German at risk. He wasn't worried though as he had his opponent drawing dead with his [ac][4c] to Thorson's [qc][2c]. -- MC
1.20pm: Lacay on the loose
Ludovic Lacay has doubled up. The Frenchman got his 15,500 chips in with [ac][8d] against the pocket tens of Daniel Moller of Sweden, and the board was kind to him, coming as it did [js][7s][as][ad][jc]. -- SB
1.15pm: Champ down
Kevin Stani, who won EPT Tallinn just a few weeks ago, will not be performing any back-to-back title heroics, he's just been seen leaving the tournament room. -- SY
1.14pm: Pagano quads!
Team PokerStars Pro Ruben Visser was down to just 10,000 and found a perfect spot to push with pocket eights. Unfortunately (for him) fellow Team Pro Luca Pagano was lurking a few seats along with pocket kings, which went on to make quads by the turn. Pagano up to 35,000 now, Visser off to the pool. -- SY
1.10pm: Mini-eri
Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri started the day in happy mood, sitting with 130,000 chips. But it all went wrong just now when he lost a huge hand to Grzegorz Cichocki. The man from Poland open-raised to 2,500 before Minieri made it 6,200. Cichocki was not done with that - bumping it up again to 17,000. This time the Italian called.
The flop came [10][5][4] and Cichocki continued his aggression with a c-bet of 22,000. Minieri, never one to shy away from that sort of thing, moved all-in and got an instant call.
Minieri: [J][J]
Cichocki: [A][A]
No help on the turn or river and Minieri doubled up Cichocki and fell to 38,000 in the process. -- SY
1.07pm: Pinho four-bets in your face
Henrique Pinho is a Portugese member of Team PokerStars Pro and will be desperately wanting to win this tournament (beyond the normal reasons of having bundles of Euros thrown at him). He's arrived today in full throttle. Julian Stuer opened to 2,200 from the cut-off and was three-bet by Sergio Coutinho on the button to 6,100. Pinho came over the top from the big blind making a large cold four-bet to 14,800. Both of his opponents had to have a long think before passing, but that they did.
Pinho also has Team PokerStars Pro JP Kelly and PokerStars SportStars Fatima Moreira de Melo at his table. Pinho is up to 80,000. -- RD
1.05pm: Duthie downed
Team PokerStars Pro John Duthie has been downed in a battle of the blinds with Pedro Guedes. The turn was out and the board read [2c][4s][tc][6c] before Duthie moved all-in for another 19,600 after Guedes led out. Guedes talked to Duthie for a moment and then made the call.
"Have you got a pair?" asked Duthie and after seeing a nodding head he continued: "I'm in trouble then!"
He was indeed in trouble as his [qh][4h] was behind to the Portuguese's [6h][5d] and the [8d] on the river changed nothing. -- MC
John Duthie: now has time to practice better poses
1.02pm: Intensive Care
Ruben Visser opened for 2,200 before Daniel Carter raised to 5,400. Visser then moved all-in which Carter called in a flash, showing [kc][kd] to Visser's [tc][td]. The board ran [5s][6c][as][2c][2s], leaving Carter with close to 70,000 while the Team PokerStars Pro Visser is added to the critical list with just 11,000 chips remaining. -- SB
12.59pm: Weekes
Jonathan Weekes opened from the hijack to 2,400 and was called by Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki on the button. An anonymous [2s][3h][9c] flop was enough for Weekes to fire another 4,200. Horecki didn't like the spot enough to carry on and quickly passed his hand.
Weekes proved to be a tough competitor at the recent EPT Tallinn where he made the final table. Don't be surprised if he goes deep again. -- RD
12.58pm: Tothed out
Team PokerStars Pro Richard Toth has been tossed out of the tournament. He started the day with 51,000. -- RD
12.55pm: Losing the Magic
Antonio Esfandiari arrived this morning to a stack of 127,800. Now, just half an hour into the day, he has lost all but 30,000 of it after a succession of hands went the way of his opponent. The latest was against Felix Alves, who moved all-in behind a raise from Esfandiari, showing pocket jacks to Esfandiari's pocket tens. Curses for the American, who now faces the immediate future as a short stack. -- SB
12.50pm: Keep out of my way
Nikita Malinovskiy open-raised and then watched with interest as Team PokerStars Pro Pieter de Korver re-popped to 6,600. Malinovskiy was interested enough to fire again for 12,500. De Korver called. The flop was [4d][3d][3s], De Korver checked and Malinovskiy gently pushed two yellow 5,000 chips over the line. De Korver jumped into action, putting a stack of yellows worth 50,000 into play. That was enough to put the Russian all in, and he elected to fold and wait for a better spot. -- SY
12.47pm: Didn't get any merrier for Mairer
PokerStars qualifier Manuel Mairer came back as one of today's short stacks but now he has no stack. He moved all-in for less than 20,000 from late position with [kh][th] but ran straight into the [ah][ad] of Pedro Vieira in the BB. The board came [8d][9d][ts][8h][ks] to seal his fate. -- MC
12.45pm: Cheerio, Yvo
The rapid rate of early departures is entirely normal as the short-stacks get to work. But among the desperate shoves there continue to be the more routine clashes that end in tears. Allan Baekke opened with a raise before Yvo Molin re-raised to 5,800 from the small blind. But in the big blind Mark Defaria, a PokerStars qualifier from Canada fancied his hand a four-bet to 12,500.
Baekke had seen more than enough and got out of the way, leaving Molin, who had another 40,000 or so behind, with a likely tournament-defining decision. Hands resting on his chin, he contemplated, then contemplated a little more. Eventually, he put his chips into two neat piles and pushed them all over the line. Defaria seemed quite happy with that and made the call:
Defaria: [qd][qc]
Molin: [jc][jh]
A nasty spot for the man from Holland, and the [6c][kc][10h][7s][2s] board failed to help. - SY
12.43pm: Early exits
Even though every player knows that a tournament is a flowing organism that seamlessly moves from hand to hand and level to level there is still a temptation to rock up at the end of any given day. This also means that there is often a sudden splurge of knockouts at the beginning of a day's play and that certainly happened today.
Among those that couldn't enjoy a magic morning resurrection were Michael Hull, John Strzemp, Michael Friedrich, Anthony Wright, Mickey Petersen, Dario Majone, Florian Lehmann and Luis Guerreiro. -- RD
12.40pm: Magic fading
Marcin Horecki has doubled up through Antonio Esfandiari. The Team PokerStars Pro found aces and moved in on a flop of [2d][4s][6s] against Esfandiari's [th][tc]. The turn came [jh] while the river was [ad]. Horecki up, Esfandiari down again. -- SB
12.35pm: One gone
In other news Iranian Mani Rezaei is out, having lost his day two starting stack of 2,500. -- SB
12.30pm: Magician and the king
Antonio Esfandiari's stack just took a dent in a hand against Ronny Kaiser. On a flop of [5s][2c][td] Esfandiari made it 5,100 from the cut off. Kaiser was in the small blind and called, while Guillermo Garcia in the big blind got out of their way. The turn came [5h] which both players checked for a [7c] on the river. This time Kaiser led the betting, 10,800 in total which Esfandiari called. Kaiser turned over [ac][th]. Esfandiari looked at his cards again, a sure sign of defeat, and mucked. -- SB
12.22pm: More from the action table
Eddie Tasbas opened for 2,500 from middle position and Sorel Mizzi three-bet to 7,200 from the hijack. The action folded past Toby Lewis on the button and back to Tasbas who calmly slid his chips across the line in two tall stacks. Mizzi didn't look interested and tossed his hand away. Tasbas is up to 53,000. -- RD
12.15pm: Tough table
Day 2 has thrown up some interesting table draws but the toughest by far (in our opinion) is table 28. Toby Lewis, David Williams, Erik Van Den Berg, Eddie Tasbas, Sorel Mizzi and Ludovic Lacay all have to find some way of extracting chips from each other. Good lucks guys.
Toby Lewis has the best draw in terms of table position and he just used it against Sorel Mizzi to win an early pot. The board was [kd][kh][4d][ad] and Lewis piled on the pressure with a 17,700 bet in to a 23,000 pot. The Canadian thought for a while but open folded pocket queens. -- MC
12.10pm: Cards are in the air
After only a slight delay play has begin on day two.
11.50am: Welcome back to day two
Suspended 200 feet over the ocean, two people flew along the Algarve coast line this morning, attached to each other in para-sailing bliss. Hundreds more beneath them sunned themselves on the golden beaches of the Crown Plaza compound while others splashed around in the pool. Yet more cast a sneaky eye on the pirate ship climbing frame in the Crown Plaza's luxury grounds, wondering whether anyone would really notice a quick run around.
All of that, and more, was available to you this morning provided you were not among the 221 players returning for day two of EPT Vilamoura.
In which case you had a day at the tables to plan for. If your name is Leonid Bilokur that day is a lot easier to plan than most. As chip leader Bilokur's plan is simple - carry on as he left off yesterday. Not that it's as simple as that, for the likes of Andre Coimbra of Team PokerStars Online, and a bunch of others not far off Bilokur's stack of 161,200, as the chip count page will demonstrate.
The exact opposite of Bilokur is not Dinoel Rukolib, but Mani Razaei, from Iran, who returns today with 2,500, and a plan A - win more chips. There's no real time for plan B.
And so to it. Day two of EPT Vilamoura is about to start, with five levels scheduled, each running for 75 minutes. There may yet be time to jump onboard a para-sail after all.
 Casino Vilamoura
PokerStars Blog reporting team at EPT Vilamoura (in order of average speed this morning): Marc Convey (all ahead full), Simon Young (advancing with caution), Stephen Bartley (slow crawl) and Rick Dacey (dead in the water). Photos by Neil
Posted originally: 2010-08-30 13:39:25
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