The biggest hand of the tournament in more ways than one. Big pot, big cards. Both Tommy Pavlicek and Juha Lauttamus had their chips in the middle with good cause to think they had hope. Mikael Norinder called them both with a board already showing 9c 8c 7c 9h.

Juha Lauttamus

Michael showed Qs 9s for trips, not a bad hand ordinarily but one that was about to be swamped. Tommy Pavlicek showed better, he had 9d 7d for a full house. But centre stage and the pot went to Juha who showed 6c 5c for the straight flush. Less than a handful are seen in any tournament, they're the Yeti of poker, but never has it been so better timed, at least as far as Juha was concerned. A massive stack of chips, measuring over 800k, are now in the possession of the Finn.


Marc Karam

Into the first break of the day, Marc Karam headed straight to his wife watching from the rail, sitting himself down beside her as if merely a spectator. Marc made a call against Markus Golser that cost him dearly and left his once mighty stack in ruins. He has an incredible record in EPT events. Played three, cashed in three, and two final table appearances (both grand finals). Can he rescue the situation and make it a third? By the look on his face it doesn't look like he can. He's listening to consoling and encouraging words from the one person best place to say them.

The red chips (worth 500) are being taken away making it now a two tone tournament. Blue chips worth 1k, brown chips worth 5k.


PokerStars qualifier Jose Navarro

Whilst PokerStars qualifier Jose Navarro is interviewed for the EPT live blog Sebastian Zink was hanging out with his brother Daniel on the rail. Both are in good spirits, with Sebastian already planning a swoop on the EPTs in Dortmund and then the new stop at San Remo next year. And Daniel? Was it frustrating watching his brother from the rail?

“Frustrating? Ha, not at all. Maybe next time it will be the other way around!”

Tournament update:

Out for €10,100:
32nd – Nick goodhall -- UK
31st – Luis Sevilla -- Spain
30th – Adrian Schaap -- Netherlands
29th – Mikael Nordin -- Sweden
28th – Frantisek Striz – Czech Republic
27th – Mikkel Madsen -- Denmark
26th – Oskar Silow -- Sweden
25th -- Tony Phillips – PokerStars qualifier -- UK

Out for €12,650:
24th – Steven Vollers -- Netherlands
23rd – Thomas Brolin -- Sweden
22nd – Tommy Pavlicek -- PokerStars player -- Canada

All photos (c) Neil Stoddart