5.15pm: Bananagate
British player Pryian de Mel has been on a hot run of form of late. A 9th place finish in EPT Prague was the filling in between two GUKPT wins and he went close to a third last week but fell short in 12th. He was complaining to the blog team about not getting paid when he's had aces. He had them on the bubble in the GUKT last week and has had them five times already today. He also explained how his table mate Juha Helppi had them once and managed to double-up with them.
Whilst this conversation was going on a player raised from early position to 1,050 before Helppi three-bet to 3,500. De Mel then got involved and four-bet to 8,500. The first player folded and Helppi looked like he was going to commit more chips until a waitress came round and offered the table a banana each. This distracted the Finn and he decided a banana was a more tempting than continuing in the pot and folded his hand. De Mel then opened his hand and what do you think he had?
Aces of course for the sixth time today! De Mel's only on 40,000 though whereas Helppi is on 70,000. --MC
5pm: Gallery
It's a packed tournament room - in more than one way.
There are plenty of tightly assembled tables, necessary simply to fit this huge field into one room (see picture one, below). But they also house numerous stars of the game (see other pictures below).
Credit, as ever on the EPT, goes to Neil Stoddart for his selection of photos:
