Andreas Hoivold of Norway thought that he would double up with pocket kings in the last hand of the day, since all the money went in preflop against Nicolas Levi, but there was none of that. Holding , Levi got quad aces on the turn with the board showing , and Hoivold will have to wait for his next EPT victory. The 38,000 pot put Levi up to 60,000.
Jiri Kulhanek was in the lead for the last two hours with a chip stack of about 80,000, but lost some during the last hour and finished the day on 65,000. Also, Annette Obrestad -- who jumped up to 64,000 during level 7 -- fell back slightly and ended the day on 51,000. Full chip counts for the best players will be posted in the morning when the casino team has counted all the chip bags from the remaining players. Day 2 will start at 3:00 PM, local time, on Wednesday afternoon.
With ten minutes left on the clock, tournament director Thomas Kremser tells the remaining players that each table should play another six hands before the day is over. After that, they will do a chip race for the 25-value chips before it is time to end the day.
The day has been an interesting one, with Daniel Negreanu being the most exciting player to watch. On a flop, Iliodoros Kamatakis bet out 1,800 holding for trips. Negreanu raised to 5,000, Kamatakis went all in with his final 10,000 and the Canadian called announcing, “Ten high,” and showing . Since there were no clubs on the turn or river, even Kamatakis thought he had won the pot, but the on river was good enough to give Negreanu his straight and eliminate another player from the tournament. Kid Poker is now up to 42,000.
Young Norwegian Annette Obrestad has eliminated yet another player. This time it was the EPT Prague champion Arnaud Mattern who had to leave the table. After Obrestad's raise on the button, Arnaud Mattern went all in with his final 4,500, holding . Obrestad called out to her American friend Mike Murray: "I need a suck-out, Mike," before calling and showing her . The flop came , the turn was the and indeed, Annette had sucked out, hitting her gut-shot straight on the turn. She further increased her stack to 56,000 and is second in chips at the moment, behind Jiri Kulhanek. Mattern has left the poker room.
We have now entered the last level of Day 1b, and less than half of the players has survived this far. 213 players started the day and there are now 104 players still remaining. The blinds have gone up to 300/600 with a 75 ante.
One of the most important things in poker is to adapt your play to the size of your stack. Being down to 6,000 early on, Negreanu adjusted, played it cool, and has now gone all the way up to 35,000.
"I think the extra hour of sleep this morning was well-invested time," says the PokerStar pro, as he fires off the biggest smile of the day.
T6 Poker qualifier, Vikke Toumaala from Finland, has the best-looking beard in the Casino Hohensyburg. He was down to a mere 5,500 a couple of hours ago, but is now way back up there after eliminating an opponent who had just a slightly smaller stack than the Finn. After the flop of , Toumaala bet out, his opponent went all in with , and Vikke called with his . No jacks on turn or river and "The Beard" is now back for real in the tournament with 28,000.