This is mighty hasty. There are now only 47 players remaining, which means the bubble is floating into view. The pots are becoming increasingly hotly contested and the beats are becoming harder to take.
As the tension mounts, so does the conversation, and there's plenty going on between Thor Hansen, Ola Brandborn and Peter Hedlund, although two of them - Hedlund and Hansen - soon stopped their banter as they went to a recent flop. Hansen made it 5,600 pre-flop from under the gun plus one; another player called from the small blind, which coaxed Hedlund in for the ride. "All of a sudden it becomes serious?" quizzed Hansen, and Hedlund put on black sunglasses by way of an answer.
Thor Hansen
The flop was king high, all three players checked. The turn was 6♠ and Hedlund bet 7,000. The other two folded in something of an anticlimax.
It wasn't quite so understated over on the table of the chip-leader Anders Langset. Matteo Fratello moved all in pre-flop and Langset, on the button, resignedly asked for a count. He was told that the total was around about 20,000 and he eventually slid in a tower of red chips to call.
"Now's the time to wake up with aces," said Andrew Feldman, in the big blind. He peeked at one card. "That's not a good start," he said. Then he peeked at another and turned them both up dismissively. He had 7-2. Fratello showed J♣-9♣ but this was missed as Langset began mock-punching Feldman across the table. He flipped over pocket aces, and the pre-flop sighing and speech play had been a ruse to get the young Englishman interested too.
"Ah, trying to suck me in, were you?" said Feldman, as the dealer ran a king-high dry board to eliminate Fratello. "If I'd have had kings, you'd have been in trouble."
"How many times have you had people shove into your aces or kings?" quizzed Martin Wendt of Langset.
"I don't know. Maybe five times?" the Norwegian replied.
Anders Langset
That, I suppose, explains his monstrous stack, somewhere close to 300,000 now. It also explains the speed of the eliminations here. Join us shortly, no doubt, for news of that bubble burst.
