During the break before level seven, the Swedish player Ola Brandborn came into the press room to share his ill fortune with our Swedish blogger Lina Olofsson. The conversation sounded a lot like plimsoles squeaking on a gymnasium floor (such is Swedish), but I'm reliably informed by an interpreter than Brandborn said something like: "If you have 50,000 chips at this stage in the tournament, you expect to be chip leader. I'm third on my table!"
Ola Brandborn
So it was. Brandborn's stack was nothing at all to be worried about. In fact, it was as hearty and impressive as the smorgasboard served at the wedding of Eric VI the Victorious to Sigrid the Haughty in 995AD. But he was sitting on the new table of death, opposite the chip-mountains of Theo Jorgensen and Jonas Molander, the EPT stalwarts making their usual appearance near the summit of the leaderboard.
However, things changed soon after that break. Molander was moved over to table one, previously known as the toughest table in the tournament, but now home simply to a pile of shoes with willowy plumes of smoke wafting upwards, their previous occupants - Gus Hansen, Michael Tureniec, Jesper Hougaard and Bertrand Grospellier - now vapourised.
Jorgensen, meanwhile, found himself involved in a major pot with the Italian player Andrea Benelli, as well as Brandborn. No one saw the details but they all saw the result. Jorgensen lost almost all of his red chips - approximately 40 of them, representing 40,000 in tournament points - to Benelli, and Brandborn also took a sizeable hit.
Andrea Benelli
Benelli, who has made final tables in both Warsaw and Deauville this season already - is captaining this one too.
