Anthon-Pieter Wink raised to 100k on the button, and Peder Skaj (pictured) upped it to 300k (leaving himself 1.4 million behind) – Wink called.

Flop:    Now Skaj just moved all in straight away, first to act.  Two or three minutes later and Wink made the call with the nut flush draw – vs. Skaj’s .  Draw vs. draw and Wink’s ahead… so what came next?  The putting Skaj ahead.

But the river was the , leapfrogging the Dutchman into the win.  What a corker for the audience, who are going nuts next door at this very moment…

Peder Skaj raised to 110k preflop on the button, Anthon-Pieter Wink repopped it to 270k, then Skaj called.

Flop:    Wink checked, Skaj bet 300k.  After a good think, he made the call.

Turn:    Check-check.

River:    Now Wink thought briefly and bet 400k – Skaj tanked for a lot longer and announced, “Call.”  Wink showed which was good – Skaj showed then mucked his hand.

Anthon-Pieter Wink reraises preflop to 220k, and the chip leader makes the call.

The flop: .  Now Skaj check-raised all-in, picking up at least 150k of Wink’s chips which he bet on the flop – only to quickly fold!  This move has worked out well for him on this final – he’s done it four times in the last hour and the hammer-wielding Swede seems to be using his large stack to the best advantage at the moment.

Seemingly invigorated by the 15 minute break, at the very start of the 8k/16k level we found ourselves with an all-in preflop situation.

Christian Kall re-raised Peder Skaj’s opening bet preflop, then got it in with the live K-Q vs. Skaj’s A-J.  The flop paired Skaj’s Ace, making it very unlikely Kall would be able to win it, and with the on the turn and river we are down to eight, Kall taking home €12,075 for his troubles.

The short stack at the final, Mitrovic Hvroje still managed to get his last 125k or so in with a premium type , right off the bat (second hand, I think it was) but was called immediately by Peder Skaj who held .  An unfortunate spot really for Mitrovic, who missed on a nine-high board and resignedly made his exit.

This has to be the most eye-watering hand of the entire tournament… definitely got the most crowd reaction of any so far – and you can see why.

Not much of a surprise that Par Lygren was happy to commit his stack preflop with , and not much of a surprise that Miska Lahti (pictured) called with .

Flop:  … Turn:   so split potential dawns, but probably not quads potential so much – river = .  Lygren doubles while the table goes, “Ooooh.”

Or the bar, or the lobby, or taking a nap, but either way Davor Pavic is no longer in the tournament, busting by running K-J into Queens preflop, which went nowhere (an extra Queen even hit the flop for good measure).

It seems like the only short-stack who’s come off with a good double through recently has been fellow Swede Philip Stupar Antonio, who got it in with preflop vs. Patrick Bousquie’s .  Bousquie pictured left, now nursing a shortish stack of his own.  When Antonio’d successfully avoided outdraws by the river, he bizarrely turned to neighbour Michal Wisniewski and shook him by the hand.

Peder Skaj has doubled up racing his against Ujvari Balazs but had to dodge a fair few bullets on the board.

Tim Verbon has also doubled his stack, pushing with and getting called by Antti Ropponen’s but sweated out the board.

Rene Bjoern Larsen has doubled up with which held against an aggressor’s after a board of

Hans Eskilsson has been eliminated after he check-raised all-in for about 15,000 over the top of Joachim Buch’s 4,500 bet. Buch quickly called with , behind but also ahead of Eskilsson’s . The turn looked to have ended the Swede’s dreams and the river made the nut straight on the river. Norway 1 Sweden 0.

Claus Nielsen raised to 2,000 from the cutoff, Joachim Buch called on the button and Hans Eskilsson called in the small blind.

The flop was and it was checked to Nielsen who bet 3,000. Buch checked Eskilsson’s stack before calling and Eskilsson himself then folded.

On the turn, Nielsen now checked and Buch bet 5,200 which the young Dane called.

The river paired with the and now Nielsen bet 10,200 which Buch instantly folded to.

An utg player limped before another player min-raised to 1,600 behind him. Fuat Can then reraised from the big blind to 4,000 and utg now shoved for about 25,000 total. The min-raiser folded and Can tanked for a moment but seemed reluctant to fold.

Finally, and resolutely, he made the call and turned over but looked upset to see his foe’s staring back at him. A board later and Can was knocked down to 30,000 while his opponent moved up to about 53,000.

UTG opened for 2,400 and Mats Rahm reraised on the button to 6,500, the action quickly went back to the original raiser who moved all-in and Rahm beat him to the middle of the felt.

Rahm:
UTG:

The flop looked dangerous for Rahm coming and the turn offered some split outs as well. But the river was the and Rahm survived to double to about 36,000

Erik Dahl, whose own fortunes aren’t huge at the moment, still had enough chips to bust Nicolas Dervaux, who’d made a good effort to keep alive all the way to level Eight.  He’d never had a huge stack, but had picked spots and stayed alive – until now.  I don’t know whether it went in preflop or on the flop, but either way he had at one point been very much ahead.

Dervaux: 
Dahl (pictured)

The nut flush draw was what got there on the river, and a wry smile from Dahl was all there was to show what had happend as Dervaux wished the table good luck and made his exit.

You can tell when there are only minutes left until the start because the foyer starts playing loud music.  Yesterday it was T-Rex, today Blur.  Tomorrow Rage Against the Machine?

The fresh batch of players are mingling outside the tournament area, another sellout crowd waiting to take up every available seat in the spacious Las Vegas Casino (or Convention centre).  We have a larger Dutch contingent coming in today, including but not limited to:

Horace Cohen
Ruben van der Meer
Tim van de Riet
Marco Adams
Paul Valkenburg
Daniel van Kalkeren
Huub Verdonschot

We’ve also got 2009’s Unibet Open Prague winner Fuat Can in the lineup, as well as a few others we’ve seen before – Imre Leibold, Kim Herold, Nicolas Dervaux and Branimir Brunovic.

Peter Jan Deraedt – 54,000
Vaidotas Zukauskis – 30,000
Mikael Johansson – 80,000
Yordan Mitrentsov – 38,000
Sonja Kovac – 7,250
Zdenek Habala – 10,600
Kenneth Svensson – 14,000
Konstantin Tsonev – 31,000
Christen Jacobsen – 31,200
Marine Jouiallec – 37,000