While Kristen Bicknell, Bryan Piccioli and Nicholas Palma joked about who to follow and unfollow on Twitter based on chip count updates, a big pot emerged. There was an open raise already and William Kassouf then three-bet to 1,800 on the button, James Akenhead four-bet to 6,500. The initial raiser folded and Kassouf called.
On the flop, Akenhead bet 5,500 and Kassouf asked "how many blue chips do you have?", referring to the blue T-5,000 chips. Akenhead slid them forward and Kassouf then called. Both checked the turn and the river and Akenhead showed , which Kassouf had beat with .
After an open-raise by Alexandru Papazian in under the gun and a call by [Removed:17], Alin Pandilica three-bet on the button and both opponents came along. On the flop, the action checked to Pandilica and he bet 3,700 and Papazian as well as Yan called.
After the turn, it was again Pandilica who bet, this time for 12,400 after it was checked to him. Only Yan called and checked the river, Pandilica checked behind and scooped the pot with to get up to around 80,000.
With now 161 entries, the tournament is well on track to better the number of entries of 2015. One of the hopefuls that jumped in recently was a previous winner of the EPT Prague High Roller event in Andrey Zaichenko. The Russian lifted the trophy in 2014 for a career-best payday of €487,190.
We missed the beginning of the hand, but Michael Rocco was kind enough to inform us on what had happened.
Alin Pandilica opened to 600 from the cutoff and Rocco three-bet to 2,400. Alexandru Papazian called from the blinds before Pandilica four-bet to 7,100. Rocco folded, Papazian called.
The flop came and Papazian check-called a bet of 8,200. The hit the turn and Papazian bet out 13,075. Pandilica raised and Papazian did one last double check before calling all in with . Pandilica mucked but his was shown anyway because it was an all in and call situation.
The on the river was a blank and Pandilica was knocked down to 26,000 while Papazian doubled to over 100,000.
Igor Kurganov opened to 800 on the button and Ghassan Bitar called in the small blind, as did [Removed:197] in the big blind. On the flop, all three players checked. The appeared on the turn and Bitar bet 1,600. [Removed:198] folded and Kurganov called.
The river saw Bitar check and Kurganov bet 2,000. Bitar check-raised to 6,000 and Kurganov asked "you really have the nut flush?", then folded after brief consideration. Bitar has around the starting stack right now, while Kurganov dropped some chips but remains the biggest stack of the trio.
On a board of we saw Liv Boeree check from early position. Ari Engel, on the button, bet 3,600 and Boeree called. Boeree check-called another 10,500 on the river but couldn't beat Engel's turned trips with .
Boeree still had just 54,000 left after the hand and would get some back the next hand as well.
Dietrich Fast raised from the hijack and Boeree called from the big blind. The flop came and Boeree check-called 700. She check-called another 1,500 on the -turn before both of them checked the on the river. Boeree showed and Fast mucked.