The very next hand, Ismael Bojang doubled up with versus and then Huidong Gu raised to 2,400 from early position. Alexander Rocha called and so did Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier on the button. Bojang squeezed to 10,500 in the big blind and enforced folds all around.
Both Fabrice Soulier and Igor Kurganov departed from table 13 within a matter of minutes and left the remaining players behind five-handed, requiring new arrivals for the action to continue. Dominik Nitsche was responsible for the seat open of Kurganov after four-bet shoving with pocket sevens from the small blind. Kurganov called with and failed to improve.
"Yeah that's what I do when I am freerolling, kind-deuce suited. I won a Satellite this morning," Mukul Pahuja said and confirmed the alleged move from early today that some players spoke about during the break.
Just now he won another nice pot on the river of a board with , his opponent was in the showdown with a three.
Brazilian Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari appears headed in the wrong direction right now.
He bet 2,500 into a flop with a pot of 5,200 already in the middle. Heads-up opponent Kevin MacPhee made the call and they both checked the turn.
The river brought another Akkari check and he folded when MacPhee fired in a value-sized bet, leaving himself less than half a starting stack behind.
Coming off his big win at the WSOP Europe Main Event in Berlin earlier this month, the same city where he won an EPT Main Event in 2010, MacPhee is working on his second bullet here, but it has already proven more fruitful than the first.
Georgios Sotiropoulos has bought in late in an attempt to get yet another big score. The Greek finished runner up at the EPT10 Prague and won a bracelet at the WSOPE in Berlin last week.
Mohsin Charania, Thomas Muehloecker, Dario Sammartino and Dominik Panka are all in for their second bullet and especially Muehloecker has an interesting situation, as he was drawn to the very same table to seat six instead of seven. Will he take revenge and get the chips back from Emil Ekvardt?
The board was already complete and reading . Charlie Carrel had moved all in for 10,400 into a pot of 13,200 out of the small blind and Marvin Rettenmaier was thinking. He eventually called off and was shown to attempt mucking his cards. Since it was an all in showdown, the dealer told him to show and it was the of the German that ended up second best in the hand.
The table at the back featuring Bertrand Grospellier, Justin Bonomo, Ismael Bojang, JC Alvarado, Huidong Gu, Alex Rocha and Craig Varnell has emerged as the most fun in the room - despite the difficulty of contending with that line-up.
In fact, with most others rather quiet, they can be heard generally having a good time all the way at the other end of the hall.
They just exploded laughing when Team PokerStars Pro Grospellier made a Royal Flush in a hand a few moments ago, and he has a huge smile now up over six-figures.
The discussion then rolled over to how many of them have actually made a Royal Flush playing live, with Bonomo recalling he was once in a three-way pot where a Royal appeared on the board.
Unfortunately, it looks like the fun may be over fast, as their table will likely be the next to break.
Emil Ekvardt was down to just 4,000 chips in this very seat and knocked out Thomas Muehloecker, and now also Simon Appleby. Ekvardt four-bet and got called by the Brit with to send yet another player to the rail.
Steve O'Dwyer and Mike McDonald may still purchase their second entry bullet while Andre Akkari has been eliminated for sure. According to Ihar Soika and Igor Yaroshevskyy, the EPT12 Malta €10,000 Single-Day High Roller champion O'Dwyer got the remainder of his stack in with pocket jacks against the pocket eights of Nicholas Petrangelo and the latter spiked a two-outer on the river.
Through a full eight levels now the players are headed off on a 20-minute break and will return to play just two more before wrapping up for the night.