Jiri Kulhanek
With a little more than one level to go on Day 1b, there is a new sheriff in town. His name is Jiri Kulhanek and he is the new chip leader with 81,000. He sits two seats to the left of ElkY, who was moved when they broke table 14. ElkY has continued to fall and is now down to 7,000.
After winning the WSOP Europe Main Event four months ago, and then being runner-up in EPT Baden two weeks later, Annette Obrestad has been the most popular female player, together with Germany's Katja Thater. In Dortmund, she continues to impress the audience by being among the chip leaders with one hour to go of Day 1b, as she now has close to 50,000 in chips stacked in front of her.
With only two levels still to go on Day 1b, 122 players remain with the chance to reach Day 2 in the PokerStars EPT German Open. The blinds have gone up to 200/400 with a 50 ante. Day 1b will finish at around 1:20 AM, local time.
After being among the chip leaders throughout the day, English poker pro Ram Vaswani has been eliminated. After losing several big pots in a row, he was caught bluffing with the last of his chips, and he has now left the poker room.
411 players came to play in PokerStars EPT German Open from 34 different countries. This is the top-15-list:
Germany 131
Holland 39
Sweden 29
France 25
USA 24
Italy 22
England 21
Spain 15
Canada 12
Finland 12
Austria 9
Denmark 9
Norway 6
Switzerland 6
Russia 5
Thor Hansen
A short-stacked Thor Hansen was moved to table 1 after the dinner break, with only 11,000 left. Since arriving, he has eliminated one opponent and crippled another, and is now up to 29,000.
“In this last hand, I was all in and wanted a call since I had top two pair. I think the air is better in this corner of the room,” says the friendly Norwegian poker legend with a big grin.
The elegant Dutchman Marcel Luske was really short-stacked after three levels today, but he came back and is now among the chip leaders with 42,000. Some of the money came from his tablemate ElkY, who is now down to 24,000.
Andreas Torbergsen
T6 Poker pro Andreas Torbergsen has had a good day so far and won a nice-sized pot a couple of minutes ago, when his 5,000 bet on river convinced his opponent to fold.
Torbergsen is now up to 28,000 and is the strongest pro so far from T6 Poker. Fellow team member Rolf Slotboom has, as always, been active at his table and is now at 17,000. “I lost quite a big pot before the dinner break, but I am happy with the chips I have,” said Rolf before going back to his seat.
A third pro from their team, Swede Anders Henriksson, was up to 18,000, but lost 6,000 to a bluff just recently and is now down to 13,000.