Joris Jaspers and Matthias Neu were enjoying a quick chat about their current prognosis as play stopped for a break after level 4. Both find themselves at the same table with little room for camaraderie - a table that includes the scenery of William Thorson, Daniel Dodet and Carlo Citrone.

“It’s not too good” says Matthais. “I’m down to 6k.”
“I’m on 14.2k chips” says Joris, a touch more relief in his voice from less of that stress which accompanies a short stack and grinds away at your sense of fair play.

Joris played the EPT Barcelona earlier this month, climbing to 7th in chips at the end of day 1. “Then I blew it on day 2!” A native of Holland, a country half underwater, it seemed appropriate to say that Joris is here to plug the leak in his own game that saw his collapse in Spain.

For the German Matthias meanwhile this is his first taste of EPT action, although his experiences at the WSOP gave him a taste of live casino poker.

“There’s a difference though. The level of play on the EPT is higher.”

We’ll see how that bodes for Joris and Matthias as the day progresses.

Katul Nathwani (born2dogbaby) and Tom Bentham (tjbentham) both of London, are more familiar with the high stakes cash games on PokerStars.com than the slow confines of live tournament poker, and both are suffering. Aged 22 they’ve each opted to ditch the university life of Maths and Computing in favour of dedicating themselves to full time poker. Any lessons today? Well, one of them lost his chips early in a heroic chase for the nuts, whilst the other has found early fair winds turning stormy.

“I had a straight flush draw earlier” said Tom, “and lost a lot of chips on that! I’m crippled with a short stack. I don’t mind it but I prefer deep stack games – I’m more of a cash game player.”

Ketul’s story wasn’t dramatic but was creeping towards the same end result - a short stack.

“I had a few chips at the start when I was just raising and raising. I’m still doing the raising but now I’m losing the chips back!”

No use worrying now, both are still in the game looking for a change of gear. From there anything can happen.