EPT Warsaw Day 2

Monday, November 17, 2008

Poles Dancing!: EPT Warsaw Day 2

We're down to the money at the PokerStars European Poker Tour Season 5 Polish Open in the dungeon of the Hyatt Regency in Warsaw.

Monday night in Poland saw Day 2 of the third iteration of this spectacular EPT event unfold, with 109 players returning from the first days of play to continue the struggle over another seven or so levels of excitement.

Roland De Wolfe led all finishers after the first seven levels of play, coming into Day 2 with a class-best $67,500 in chips.

The field below him seemed to be comprised of equal parts Team PokerStars pros and players hailing from the great nation of France, with Katja Thater, Gavin Griffin, Johnny Lodden, Bertrand Grospellier and, of course, Isabario Mercinieri representing the former and Ludovic Lacay, Antony Lellouche, Nicolas Levi, Arnaud Mattern and, well, Bertrand Grospellier representing the latter.

Also representing the latter was one Vanessa Thobert, an online qualifier from the nation of wine and cheese, who with her pixie face and diminutive stature captured the heart of diminutive PokerListings.com live blogger Rod Stirzaker.

Unfortunately, Thobert was eliminated early on Day 2, joining the likes of Levi, Lodden, ElkY, Michael Keiner and EPT3 Polish Open champ Peter Jepsen in that regard.

Someone got into the Scooby Snacks!

The day, meanwhile, belonged to Dario Minieri, the barely legal, Porsche-driving super freak from Italy who spent most of Monday bouncing around the room like an eight-year-old hopped up on Coco Puffs, chattering away, giggling a lot and raising the pot over and over and over again.

Minieri was good, and when he wasn't good he was lucky, despite hitting a dry run in the middle of the day during which he seemingly lost every race he entered and doubled up his entire table a couple times over.

The Italian mini-stallion made it all back during the bubble period, though, straight abusing his tablemates with repeated raises and reraises while his cherubic face and angelic demeanor worked to charm his way out of most of the trouble he might have faced.

It was his chatter, ironically, that got Minieri into his biggest trouble of the day, however. Facing down an opponent on an 8-8-6-Q board, Minieri folded to a large bet and then told his rival he'd pay him $1 million if he didn't have K-Q.

"Let's make it $1,000," his opponent replied, but Minieri shook his head.

"I'll only bet $1 million."

Don't spend that prize money just yet!

So they shook on it and Player 2 turned up pocket eights for quads. "You want the name of my bank in Denmark," he asked Super Dario, "or do you pay cash?"

So Minieri is down a million, but he wound up the day second in chips $211,400 and Isabelle Mercier, the second half of the dreaded Isabario Mercinieri amalgam, finished up in the middle of the pack with $55,600, so the two can probably combine their winnings and get a decent portion of that debt paid off by the end of the tournament.

Speaking of abusing the bubble, chip leader Sergey Shcherbatskiy should have been locked up for the moves he was putting on his fellow tablemates as they waited for eliminations 26 and 25 to unfold. Shcherbatskiy played textbook big-stack poker, refusing to let his rather timid opponents gain an inch and gobbling up most every chip at his table during the bubble period on his way to an end-of-day stack worth $265,900. Check out full chip counts here.

Stunning fall from grace!

Meanwhile, not making the money were the likes of Katja Thater, Mark Teltscher, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Bertrand Grospellier and Antony Lellouche, the latter of whom saw his good fortune make a stunning reversal in the level after the dinner break.

Playing poker philanthropist, Lellouche bought the rounds repeatedly in a 60-minute horror show that saw him lose with A-4 vs. A-J, 2-2 vs. 8-8 and, against Arnaud Mattern, 8-8 vs. 2-2 when the EPT Prague champ spiked a cruel deuce on the river. Check out the PokerListings live update log for details. Check out our interview with Mattern here.

Advancing into a Polish zloty payday are Mattern, Minieri, Roland De Wolfe, Ludovic Lacay, Mercier and 2007 Irish Open champ Marty Smyth. Action will resume at 2 p.m. CET and continue until only eight players are left standing and we've got our final table.

Last season the penultimate day of play took barely two hours to complete, and while we probably won't break that record this time around, history has shown this to be a relatively insane tournament, so grab your seat early and hang on tight as PokerListings.com brings you more from the EPT in Warsaw.