We're in for a soft start of Day 3, as the game has tightened up all around as we're closing in on the bubble. But someone who didn't start off on the slow side was dematch AA, very keen on bringing his stack up to par. Playing almost any cards he could, he finally got lucky and moved his stack up to around a hundred. But he didn't drop the pace there, and his opponents soon started to take advantage of his loose image. After playing virtually every hand, he finally dropped the pace, halfway into the first level, and has now established a tight image. Unfortunately he's down to around his start stack of the day.

dematch AA hails from Paris, France, and works as a management and IT consultant. Apart from poker, he enjoys sports like running, tennis and squash, and loves to take off on water ski or kite surfing vacations. He's pretty new to live poker, and only placed well in a few casino tournaments. He used to be an avid online tournament player, but have recently moved over to explore the cash game tables. He won his seat to the WSOPE by qualifying through the $10 satelites and won his final ticket on his 10th satelite, but one of the very first $500+40 finals he had played.

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And we're back for Day 3! First up, here are how things stand at the start of play:

Andy Bloch 321600
Brian 'sbrugby' Townsend 290100
Erik Seidel 282300
John Juanda 252500
Philippe Rouas 233300
Chris Elliott 231900
Chris 'Moorman1' Moorman 219500
Justin 'BoostedJ' Smith 217700
Daniel Negreanu 203700
Brandon Adams 190000
Jani Sointula 184800
Bengt Sonnert 184600
Mike Matusow 180300
Ivan Demidov 176200
Tome Moreira 165800
Stanislav Alekhin 164000
Christofer Williamsson 163500
Scott Fischman 152800
Rajinder Shina 152500
Jarred Solomon 142400
Jan Schwarz 133800
Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott 133000
Peter Turmezey 132500
Peter Neff 130400
Perttu Bergius 119800
Talal Shakerchi 119800
Max Steinberg 114700
Robin Keston 13800
Speedzebre 111300
Kim-Andre Torsvik 109200
Ross Boatman 103100
Frazer Bellamy 98200
Brian Johnson 95900
Martin Fournier-Giguere 94100
Mel Judah 93700
Erik Sagstrom 93100
Phil Laak 92900
Josh Arieh 89000
Roberto Machado 85000
Harri Pehkonen 82200
Alexander Kostritsyn 80100
Toni Hiltunen 78600
James Keys 76400
Stephen Ladowsky 69900
Jean Thorel 66700
Ted Lawson 65100
Tim West 58600
Johnny Lodden 57200
dematch AA 56000
Jani Vilmunen 52200
Thomas Bentham 50700
Panicos Panaxi 45600
Jeff Garza 43200
Soren Kongsgaard 41400
Karl Mahrenholz 34800
Florian Langmann 32700
Steve van Zadelhoff 32200
Vicky Coren 29800
Jason Gray 23600
Isaac Haxton 22500
Andy Black 21600
William Haughey 17600

There are now 64 players remaining and today we'll play down to 27. The top 36 are paid.

We've just heard who our Team will be up against today. Despite having an above average stack, Speedzebre finds himself the shortest on his table ,which includes 5 of the top 20, one of which is a certain Mike Matusow. He'll also be up against John Juanda and Christopher Moorman in what is a very, very tough looking table. dematch AA, whilst much shorter stacked than his compatriot, finds what is on paper at least an easier table, with just 1 of the top 20 stacks. Notable names at his table include Eric Sagstrom and Alexandre Kostrisyn.

I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing the guys the best of luck. You can do it!

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Day 2 has just finished, and it finished on a high for Team PokerRoom, with both of our players safely through to Day 3 after long battles at the tables. dematch AA is sitting on 56000 whilst an incredible effort from Speedzebre has propelled him up from 40,000 earlier in the day to a closing stack of 111,000 which is just above average. Great work guys!

There were plenty of highs and lows from today's play. gbpoker was gutted to lose out in a big tourney on a coin flip AGAIN... keep it up though fella, you made the right call and eventually your luck is bound to change. My personal highlight of the day has to be Speedzebre dumping Scotty Nyguen out of the WSOPE. That's what you get for messing with Team PokerRoom, baby! We also saw dematch AA effectively knocking out Doyle Brunson as well, so it really has been a day to remember for our French pair. They'll be back tomorrow, and so will we!

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Tag 2 beim Main Event in London ist vorbei. 64 Spieler sind übrig geblieben, zwei davon aus dem Team PokerRoom.

Der Deutsche JK2718 war der erste unserer zwei Spieler, die wir heute verloren haben. Im Big Blind und JJ auf der Hand reraist er einen Gegner auf 5.000 Chips, dieser erhöht weiter auf 15.000. Aufgrund der Spielweise des Gegners entschließt sich JK2718 nach langer Überlegung zu einem All-In. Er wird sofort gecallt und findet sich in einem klassischen Coinflip, JJ gegen AQs. Das Ende der Geschichte können wir uns wohl alle vorstellen … immerhin kam das Ass gleich am Flop.

Mit Coinflip ausgeschieden … Pech für JK2718

Nicht viel besser erging es gbpoker, er war in der entscheidenden Hand aber am anderen Ende des Coinflips. Mit AK gehen seine 19.000 Chips nach einem Standardraise in die Mitte, sein Gegner callt und zeigt ein Paar Zehn. Auch hier sind mehr Worte nicht nötig; kurz: das Board brachte nix. 1.000 Chips blieen ihm übrig, diese verlor er dann kurz darauf mit AT gegen ein Paar Könige.

Wir gratulieren den beiden, es in diesem harten Feld so weit geschafft zu haben. gbpoker war ja bereits das zweite mal mit Team PokerRoom auf Reisen … ich habe das Gefühl, es war nicht das letzte Mal.

gbpoker

Weitaus erfreulicheres gibt es von unserem französischem Duo Speedzebre und dematch AA zu berichten.
Scotty Nguyen war erst neu an den Tisch gekommen und hatte bereits für Stimmung gesorgt, in late position geht er schließlich mit 3.500 Chips All-In. Speedzebre sitzt im Big Blind (600 Chips bereits investiert), nach wenigen Sekunden Überlegen ist er auch schon von Kameras umzingelt. Letztendlich ringt er sich sichtlich gequält zu einem Call mit 63s durch … gar keine schlechte Position gegen AJo von Scotty Nguyen. Eine Sechs am Flop bringt ihm den entscheidenden Vorteil und das Vergnügen, einen der Superstars aus dem Turnier geworfen zu haben!
Nach einem aufregenden Ende des Tages schließt Speedzebre mit 111.000 Chips ab und befindet sich damit in fantastischer Position, auch morgen wieder sein bestes Spiel zu bringen.

Speedzebre, hier nicht am überlegen, ob er Scotty Nguyens All-In callen soll

dematch AA hatte einen durchwachsenen Tag. Mit über 60.000 Chips war er an 36. Stelle liegend in den Tag gestartet, bald hatte er aber "nur" mehr 20.000 vor sich stehen. In einer bemerkenswerten Aufholjagd konnte er sich wieder auf unglaubliche 120.000 Chips hocharbeiten – darunter auch viele von Doyle Brunson, der sich am Tisch unseres Franzosen wiederfand.
Leider schwang das Pendel bemerkbar zurück und dematch AA musste viele seiner Chips wieder abgeben, am Ende des Tages blieben ihm aber noch 56.000 übrig.

dematch AA plant hier sicher schon den nächsten Move

Unsere zwei Spieler werden morgen weitermachen. Morgen werden wir wahrscheinlich auch die Bubble platzen sehen und wissen, wer mit einem wie dicken Geldbündel nach Hause geht.

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The final session of Day 2 is now underway, with blinds at 600/1200 and 200 ante. Our two Team members had frustrating sessions but live to fight another day, Speedzebre on 49,000 and dematch AA holding around 40,000. Both will be looking to double up during this final session to bring themselves up to around average. It's also gone midnight now and tiredness is setting in. Keep going chaps!

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Blinds are now up to 500/1000 with 100 ante and our two remaining players have returned from dinner break ready to fight their way on to Day 3. dematch AA is on around about 80000 after losing a big pot right before the break, while Speedzebre has risen to 70500 chips which is roughly average at this moment. The rest of the Team, in true Team PokerRoom style, are cheering on our boys from the rail. It really does show the camaraderie amongst the Team - despite the obvious disappointment of busting out, they're all putting that behind them to support the others. It's great to see and our two remaining players will hopefully give us all something to cheer about!

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Phenomenal stuff from dematch AA, who having started the day in 36th position (and 61225 chips) had seen his stack dwindle to as little as 20,000 early in the previous level. Cue dematch storming back up through the field with a current chip stack of over 120,000! I reckon that puts him on the fringe of the top 10 as things stand at the moment. Outstanding work Monsieur! I caught a recent big pot he took down, where he held top pair and was pumping 15,000 into the pot on the turn and then the river. It was called each time by his increasingly frustrated opponent, who was eventually sent packing by the flush our man hit on the river. dematch AA also has, incidentally, his hero Bruno Fitoussi sitting immediately to his left. What a day so far for the Frenchman!

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362 Spieler haben sich für das Main Event der WSOPE registriert, 179 davon traten heute in London zu ihrem zweiten Tag an. Unter ihnen befinden sich auch vier aus dem Team PokerRoom. Alle träumen natürlich davon, einen Teil der 3.620.00£ mit nach Hause nehmen zu können … am Besten natürlich gleich die 868.800£ für den ersten Platz.

Speedzebre, dematch AA, JK2718 und gbpoker

Das Feld ist schon bedeutend kleiner geworden, all unsere Jungs haben es an ihrem Tisch mit großen Namen zu tun, doch dazu später mehr.
gbpoker eröffnet den Tag gleich wieder mit einem Schock, als er sich nach wenigen Händen All-In befindet. Sowohl er als auch sein Gegner zeigen lachend Pocket Aces und teilen sich den Pot.
Zur ersten Pause waren alle Team PokerRoom Spieler noch im Rennen. dematch AA musste sich mit einigen Bad Beats und erfolglosen Bluffs ärgern und fällt auf 20.000 Chips zurück, ungefähr gleichviel wie gbpoker, der außer dem erwähnten Split Pot keine Hand gewinnen konnte.

JK2718 hält bei einem soliden Stack von 50.000, Speedzebre legt ein unglaubliches Level hin und baut seinen Stack von 37.000 auf 65.500 Chips aus!

gbpoker wartet geduldig

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The Team continues to throw its weight about, and this time it's dematch AA who has left Doyle Brunson very short stacked. We only caught the end of the hand, but it was enough to see Texas Dolly folding to a 10,000 bet from our hero on a board of Ac6s5dQd7d. That leaves Brunson down to 16,000.

And Brunson never recoved, going out in the very next hand. Farewell to the 75 year old and we hope it's not his last time here. More news, Daniel Negreanu has just waltzed into the media centre (our blogging hq) in a very good mood indeed. He's obviously decided to take this break to inform us all how well he's doing... and to be fair it's pretty well! After a quick look at the chip counts I can see that he's sitting pretty in first place on a massive, massive 240,000. That's over 90,000 clear of 2nd place from what I can make out. Sometimes you just have to take your hat off to genius like that. And just as I'm writing this post he's strolled past and asked me if I have the chip counts! Duly informed, he's walked off looking even more smug than he did on the way in...

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On a brighter side of things, we just had the opportunity to see Speedzebre put one under the belt. It's folded up to Scotty, to the right of the button, who shoves his remainding 3,500 into the middle. There's a "Good luck" from his table neighbour, followed by the usual "Say your good luck to them, baby!" from Scotty, pointing towards the remaining three players on the table. The button folds. Small blind takes ages, clearly inclined to call, before he folds. Speedzebre is now the only player left, on the big blind (600). By now, two hole camera crews have found their way to the table, and along with a bunch of photographers, including your loyal blogger, the whole table is lit up by camera lights. Our plucky Frenchman looks back and forth, to the left and right, saying "No? no?", obviously not too happy with the cards on his hands but not quite able to just fold them away... Finally, after a bit of wrestle infront of the cameras, he flips over...

...63 of clubs, to go up against Scotty's AJ of diamonds.

And obviously our Frenchman is on a roll, as a 6 lands on the flop and nothing at all on the board in favour of Scotty Nguyen. It's all over, baby! An genuinely happy Speedzebre got up to shake the hand of the current WSOP HORSE Champion, previous WSOP Main Event champion and holder of 5 WSOP bracelets, as he walked off into the sunset. Way to go Speedzebre!

We've also just seen that dematch AA has been moved to Doyle Brunson's table. It doesn't seem to have fazed the Frenchman, who looks calm and confident despite the tv cameras in his face! Keep it up guys!

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