Finnur Hrafnsson


Marcel Baran

by Simon Young

Two more of our PokerStars qualifiers are going great guns as just 16 players remain here in Dublin. Icelandic Finnur Hrafnsson and Germany's Marcel Baran have piled on the chips in a frenetic hour or so of poker.

They both took huge pots off Jonas Helness, the chip leader at the start of the day. First Marcel took a sizeable nibble of the Swede's stack, then just a couple of hands later Finnur moved in for the kill. He now sits on about 240,000, with Marcel on about the same.

The PokerStars pair shared the same table, tangling with each other once or twice, but the remaining two tables are now being re-drawn as we head down to the one, final table of eight for tomorrow.


Simon Ehne

Not so lucky was fellow PokerStars qualifier Simon Ehne, from Sweden. He was eliminated in 18th place after tangling fatefully with Roland de Wolfe. It was folded round to Roland, who limped in with 10-10 from the small blind. Simon checked with 6-2 and was delighted to see a flop of 6-4-4. All the chips went in, and nothing changed on the turn or river to keep all Simon's chips from Roland's clutches.

With 16 remaining, PokerStars is well represented, particularly with Luca Pagano looking more assured as the night goes on.