Three players had 17,200 in front of them when we got to a table where Leo Yan Ho Cheng was all in from the button for 56,000 more. Ihar Soika shoved from the big blind, covering everyone in the hand. Erik Seidel, who was under the gun, thought only briefly before calling off his 130,000 or so. Davidi Kitai took a deep breath and looked at the clock, thinking hard about putting in his stack of about 80,000 more.
"Sorry," he said with a smile, clearly struggling with the massive odds he was getting. Finally, he raised his cards to muck them.
"Jacks," he said pointing at Soika.
"Ace-king," he said to Seidel. He predicted Cheng's hand as well but we couldn't hear it.
Kitai's read was a bit off though, as Soika had only , while Seidel was the one leading with . Cheng had . The ugliest card in the deck from Seidel's perspective appeared in the window: . The turn improved Soika to a boat and eliminated Cheng from contention, and the was a blank on the river to send the Super High Roller champion packing as well.
Daniel Colman, one of the premier tournament players in the world, just got his walking papers courtesy of John Andress, who opened from the cutoff to 4,500. Colman defended his big blind, and the flop came . Colman checked, and Andress bet 5,200. Colman responded with an all-in shove, and Andress quickly called.
Andress:
Colman:
Colman's equity was slim, and the turn and didn't save him.
Patrick Leonard, who busted once and reentered yesterday, begins Day 2 with 45,300. It's a number he's not too happy with; in fact, the last hand of Day 1 seems to have thrown Leonard into a bit of an existential crisis.
Late last night, after play had concluded, Leonard bared his poker soul in the popular TwoPlusTwo forum:
"I'm going to say this and I know its not going to sound good to investors, but I really dont feel like I should be playing 25k tournaments.
"I just took a bad beat which 99.9% of the time I take perfectly fine but here it hit me really badly. It was the last hand of the day, I've been happy all day, even when times were going really bad I was very optimistic and played as close to A game as possible, but when this river card happened, I can't really explain it but it hurt me mentally way more than it should have done.
"Walking back to my hotel I felt genuinely very, very sad and thats a pretty bad thing. Bad beats are part of everything, I should just accept it and move on to the next hand, but this time it just made me genuinely sad/upset and thats a terrible mindset to have."
There's a lot more to the post — which you can view in full here — but it's clear yesterday took it's toll on Leonard. The silver lining is that today is a new day, and in poker, truly anything can happen.
We'll keep an eye on Leonard throughout Day 2 to see if his luck changes.
Ten levels are in the books at European Poker Tour 11 Grand Final €25,500 High Roller, and as you might expect, plenty of big names are sitting at the top of the leaderboard as things roll into Day 2, set to begin at 12:30 local time here in Monte Carlo today.
Steve O'Dwyer (330,200), Tony Gregg (325,800), Max Altergott (311,100), and Matt Waxman (298,500) are the headliners leading the 94 who bagged at the end of Day 1. Team PokerStars pros Daniel Negreanu (182,000), Isaac Haxton (181,700), Scott Seiver (177,700), Sorel Mizzi (154,500), €100,000 Super High Roller winner Erik Seidel (149,100), and Mike "Timex" McDonald (118,800) are also making their presences known and have amassed solid stacks.
Even more high-rolling stars of the game could still show up, as registration is open until 12:15, just before the restart. Players who enter at the last minute will have 50,000 chips to work with as blinds kick off at Level 11 (1,000/2,000/300). Certainly, it's not a ton, but a workable stack nonetheless with 25 big blinds. Today's agenda is identical to Day 1, with 10 one-hour levels on tap. The only change is the possibility of an early stop should the tournament be whittled down to 8 players, at which point play would stop and everyone would come back for the official final table tomorrow.
, while Seidel was the one leading with 
. Cheng had 
. The ugliest card in the deck from Seidel's perspective appeared in the window: 
. The 
turn improved Soika to a boat and eliminated Cheng from contention, and the 
was a blank on the river to send the Super High Roller champion packing as well.
. Colman checked, and Andress bet 5,200. Colman responded with an all-in shove, and Andress quickly called.
turn and 
didn't save him.
