Daily Rewind: Bellande looking strong, Eureka's new high, poker graduates
Today we catch up with the WPT Five Diamond Classic, break records in Prague and graduate from the University of Poker.
Bellande leads WPT Five Diamond
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| Bellande finds chips |
He might be a broke cash game grinder, but that didn't seem to stop Jean-Robert Bellande sailing to an impressive chip lead on Day 4 of this year's WPT Five Diamond Classic.
Despite starting the session somewhere within the chasing pack, Bellande stormed past the competition in the latter stages to end the day with 1,637,000 chips and finish ahead of Keith Tilston (1,274,000) and Eddy Sabat (1,026,000).
While things went well for Bellande, the day wasn't as joyful for Kevin Eyster. Although the circuit regular started the day with high hopes, he found himself falling one place short of the money after Steven Silverman's pocket jacks sucked out on his pocket kings.
With the bubble burst and the remaining 45 players guaranteed a return on their investment, the eliminations came thick and fast until just 21 hopefuls remained ahead of today's penultimate session.
Masses ante-up in Prague
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| Crowds gather in Prague |
If the latest activity in Prague is anything to go by then this week's EPT Main Event could be one of the largest ever.
Known as one of the most popular destinations on the poker calendar, the Czech festival has just broken the record for the largest ever Eureka Poker Tour tournament after welcoming 1,315 entrants to its €1,100 Main Event.
Smashing the previous record by more than 600 players, the tournament saw a slew of big name pros take to the felt and Erik Soderholm claim the chip lead after Day 1B.
University of Poker
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| Xuan from UW |
Mike 'Timex' McDonald, Mike Watson, Xuan Liu and Steve-Paul Ambrose are just some of the world-class players that have emerged from the University of Waterloo in recent years.
According to a recent article by the Huffington post, the Canadian university is becoming synonymous with producing poker stars; a role it's apparently embracing.
Throughout the article a number of reasons for the student's success were suggested, but Will Ma seemed to sum it up perfectly when he said: "it's a small town and I think the fact it snows a lot I think is a pretty big factor in our success."
Whatever the reasons, it seems that if you're searching for the next poker star then the University of Waterloo could be the place to look.
Closer to home it seems the UK's University of Warwick is also a hotbed for poker talent. Indeed, in a recent article by UK PokerNews the university's famous alumni were highlighted in a list that included: Alex 'Kanu7' Millar, Rupert Elder, Andrew Hulme and Zimnan Ziyard.
Patrik 'FinddaGrind' Antonius topped the latest high stakes leaderboard after banking $275,442. Although the Finn's session only last 304 hands, he was able to finish ahead of such luminaries as: Niklas 'ragen' Heinecker ($180,429) and 'donthnrmepls' ($150,700).
Feeling the force of Patrik's rare appearance at the virtual felt on Monday was Phil 'OMGClayAiken' Galfond. After playing through 297 hands the American pro was left with a $262,068 deficit, which was enough to put him ahead of Alexander 'PostflopAction' Kostritsyn (-$226,742).
Caption Competition
For today's round of wordplay we give you a chance to caption this cheeky shot of Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier and his girlfriend.
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Daily Signoff
Yesterday's quotes were quickly guessed (1. Phil Hellmuth, 2. Tony G, 3. The Devilfish) by some of you, so for today's conclusion we thought we'd finish with The Devilfish letting rip.
