When you're hot, you're hot and Julian Thew is somewhere near to the sun at the moment.

Julian Thew - an hour or so before his rush to the chip lead

He just busted Pascal Perrault in a battle of the blinds that got a little ugly courtesy of a pair of pocket aces (Thew's) to Pascal's ace-queen. They did the usual shilly-shallying, raise-reraise pre flop and then flipped. There were no miracles for Perrault and Julian vaulted into the chip lead.

A few hands later and he was at it again. Thomas Fuller, from the United States, raised to 20,000 from early position. From my railbird's perch I'd seen his pocket jacks. Julian asked how much he had behind, and Thomas counted out around 80,000. Julian bumped it up to 100,000, effectively putting Fuller all in, and after a couple of minutes' speech-play, the young American folded.

Ted Lawson led the other players in their guessing as to what Thomas had and he eventually showed them the hooks. Julian tapped the table in appreciation of the laydown and flashed pocket queens.

Julian is leading by some distance now: he's on more than 575,000, with Denes Kalo on about 380,000 and the PokerStars player Sebastian Ruthenberg on about 370,000. The short stacks are Age Spets and Thomas Fuller.

Meanwhile, Hans Eskilsson is out. The former soccer professional from Sweden pushed in with king-four and ran into David Sonelin's ace-queen. The PokerStars qualifier from Sweden continues to prosper under the studio lights.