Joris Jaspers is looking to make this EPT the one he scores big. After playing a few already this season he’s come close but never made it into a cash finish. Now he’s looking for even better, re-raising a bet – slowly pushing three stacks worth 60k into the middle – a move that leaves his opponent little choice but to take five minutes to fold – allowing Joris to slowly pull back the three stacks.

PokerStars qualifier Tim Vance, still with his St Louis cap and pictures of his daughter tucked beneath, is a commanding presence at his table now, one that features Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano and a certain Jonas ‘Nebuchad’ Danielson – winner of the best online player award at the Scandinavian Poker Awards.

He’s on the button and moves all-in for 16k. His stack was decimated earlier in part by Vance, who now tank calls. It’s 8-2 off suit for Nebuchad, A-Q with a heart for Vance. So the flop of 8-9-T, with two hearts was a mixed blessing. Nebuchad had the pair but Vance was on a straight draw. The turn, the three of hearts, gave him the flush draw too which was duly delivered on the river, the jack of hearts.

At one point yesterday Tim was down to 11k. He’s now up to nearly 100k.

An interesting moment occurred over on PokerStars qualifier Runar Runarsson’s table. The Icelandic airline pilot, who hit a bad patch in Dublin which cost him a cash finish, is flying high here (queue more flight references) and raised pre-flop for about 8,500 one off the button. The button player, Sigbjorn Mortueit, re-raises 20k in total and the action returns to Runar.

Poker etiquette isn’t exactly set in stone but Runar may have felt a little hard done by. As he chewed his toothpick, checked his ample reserve of chips and pondered the call Sigbjorn said to him “If you fold I’ll show.”

Runar, used to the pressure of landing planes in Iceland, thought about it. “Want me to fold? Okay...”
Runar did just that only to see Sigbjorn muck his hand and take the pot.

“You’re not going to show?”

No word from Sigbjorn...

“Okay,” shrugged Runar, “game on...”