Stacking the chips: T J Cloutier

by Simon Young

T J Cloutier has had a dream start to Day 2, winning a huge pot when he got all in pre-flop with aces against his opponent's pocket jacks. No help on the board for the other guy, and T J, who qualified for this event on PokerStars, gathered in a huge pot to take him over 60,000. It's not the news other players in room wanted to hear.

Action in the early stages has been frenetic, with players fighting with each other like cats in a bag. In the first 15 minutes we lost 16 players as cries of "All in" rang around the card room. The number out soared to 40 after an hour.

Short-stacks finding anything half-decent from the dealer were pushing, hoping for the double up that would enable them to at least play some thoughtful poker.

For some it worked, like England's Nick Slade, whose Q-Q stood up against an up and down straight draw. And France's Patrick Bueno took his chance with 7-7, which held up against A-J. But for others, like PokerStars qualifier Boris Shostack, a mettalurgist from the US whom we first met at the EPT Baden in October, there was no such luck. With just 15,000 or so, he chose to push with A-Q but found a caller with the dominating A-K. A king on the flop sealed his fate.

The table-drawing Gods have construed to put chip leader Bastian Landehagen and second-placed Erlund Melsom on the same table. They spent the first few rounds of cards staring at each other, sizing each other up. No big clashes yet.


So who has been pinching the antes?: Luca Pagano

Elsewhere, there are contrasting fortunes for our Team PokerStars players. Italy's Luca Pagano is showing ruthless aggression, re-raising and leading out when he sniffs weakness. He is now up to over 30,000, and has a huge pile of black 100 chips - a sign that he is snapping up the table's 100 antes on a regular basis. On one hand he was raised in the big blind by Norway's Jan Sjavik - a dangerous player. Suspecting a simple steal Luca moved over the top and collected the pot.

ElkY has been busy, adding about 8,000 to his stack, and sits on 24,000 or so. But Tom McEvoy, who told me just before the start that he was desperate for some early cards, has not had his prayers answered just yet. He's down to 9,000 now and will have to make a move very soon.

On the Scandinavian Table of Death, Johnny Lodden, Martin Wendt and Peter Eichhardt seem to be avoiding each other, but taking every opportunity to attack the rest of the table.