“Stalling is the new black,” joked PokerStars Blog photographer Rene Velli.
The extra hand of hand for hand play had a huge effect on the length of time it took to get in the money. It took the last 45 minutes of level 16 and another 45 minutes of level 17 to finally get there, and the unfortunate player to leave in 96th place was Christopher Andler from Sweden.
Before the actual bubble hand took place three players put their tournament at risk, but with good reason. Paul Berende, Dara O’Kearney and Ludovic Geilich were all below average but could’ve folded to the money if they hadn’t found the nut pre flop hand.
Berende and O’Kearney were both up on the feature table and had stacks of 73,000 and 95,500 respectively. Dan Smith and his pocket kings couldn’t come from behind to defeat Berende and Alen Bilic’s queens were second best after a 6♥ K♥ 4â™ 10♥ 8♦ board came down. O’Kearney breathed a sigh of relief after his opponent missed the flush draw he picked up on the turn.
Aa v qq. Manage to fade the q and the flush draw he turned to double #Phew #EPT12Malta
— Dara O’Kearney (@daraokearney) October 28, 2015
Geilich was not so fortunate. He was down to around 35,000 when he three-bet all in from the small blind with A♦ A♣ . Pierre Chevalier had opened from mid position and made the call with 10♣ 9♣ . TD Luca Vivaldi announced the action to the room and there were some giggles when they heard what Geilich was up against and their reaction was even louder when the flop fanned 8♣ 7♠2♣ . Chevalier had flopped the world and had his Scottish opponent drawing dead when the J♥ turn made him a straight.
Run worse go upstairs for a cigarette sit down on a chair that’s soaking wet and now have a soaking wet arse lol #EptMalta
— ludovic geilich (@Gr4vyBo4t) October 28, 2015
Once Geilch was out of the way the tension was ramped up to 11. As the bubble period was so long, word spread around the room that two players were seriously short and both would be forced all in the next time they were in the big blind. Christopher Andler thought he had the advantage over Andrew Atkinson but after wandering over to check, he realised that it was he who be at risk first.
Andler, being Swedish, seemed very chilled out about the predicament he found himself in, whereas Atkinson was anything but. His shoulders were tense and he was heard muttering, “Oh jeez!” to himself. A min cash is worth €9,320 and the Brit qualified for just €32.40 so you can understand his tension now.
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