Before the whistle blew on level one the brutality of poker was driven home with all its naked force on Moritz Kranich's table. With the board reading 5-A-A-K and a player all in, the potential caller mulled the lonely choice - fold, taking your loss like a man, or hero call and at least crash out in a spectacular blaze of glory. It turned out this guy was the hero type. He called showing A-J, a hand that left him trailing to the all-in player's pocket fives. That was until the river came a jack for a cruel reversal of fortunes.
Elsewhere Joao Barbosa continues to accumulate chips, most of the time anyway. The Portuguese EPT champion is taking on a champ of a different sort in the form of WPT winner Rehne Pedersen - the Dane emerging the richer of the two after one hand went to the river.
William Thorson's table has a few familiar faces for any poker or traditional Bavarian music fan. Alongside the Team PokerStars Pro sit Paul Testud, Deauville final tablist Jorn Walthaus and German TV presenter Florian Silbereisen.
Silbereisen is attracting the crowds right now. He has a colourful background - an accordion player at age seven, an accomplished television presenter, his show featuring the latest German Volksmusic, and also a world record holder, a title he claimed live on television last year when he kissed 36 women inside of a minute.
Regardless of that, Casanova just had his first taste of EPT fisticuffs, calling on a board of Q♣-J♦-T♥-Q♦-K♦ only to be shown A-K by his opponent. Silbereisen showed a nine, and funnily enough said "nein" at the same time. Good, but not good enough.
