Hungry like de Wolfe
by Simon Young
Roland de Wolfe has been sitting on the same table all day, accumulating 63,000 chips. But now the WPT and EPT winner from London has been told his table is being broken and he’s on the move. “Terrible shame,” he told me. “Had I stayed on that table for the rest of the night it would have been very difficult NOT to reach 100,000 chips.”
With that, he followed me into the press room to find out who his new foes will be – because players have now gone on a break at the end of Level 9 and his new home is empty. When they get back in 15 minutes, the players will pay blinds of 400-800 and running ante of 100.
Just over 100 remain of today’s 247 starters. Among the departed are Team PokerStars’ Noah Boeken, from Amsterdam, Marc Goodwin, and most recently Magnus Petersson, the Swede who won in Copenhagen, who pushed with A-K suited but was trumped by J-J. A further J on the flop rather rubbed salt into the wounds.
Germany’s Sebastain Ruthenburg had dropped back a bit in chips, but has just made the sort of call that can make a championship. On a flop of A-5-4 he re-raised to 10,000 or so, only for his opponent to come back over the top – effectively putting Ruthenburg all in. He went into the tank for a good three minutes before announcing “OK, I call” and moving his stack to the middle.
It was an inspired decision – the other guy had 3-5 for middle pair and gutshot straight draw, while Ruthenburg had J-5 for middle pair, better kicker. He was delighted, and the turn of a Q and harmless river improved his mood further still.
Current chip leader is Norway’s Andreas Hoivold, who has accumulated 85,000 chips. Tobias Holmeider has 55,000 alongside Austria’s Marcus Golser. And Sverre Sundbo continues his steady climb back to safety, now up to 26,000 from his desperate position of being down to 600.
PokerStars qualifier David Tavernier, who lost to de Wolfe when heads up in last October’s Dublin EPT, is proving to be an immovable object and has about 20,000 chips. Hit quad fives just before the current break helped him along nicely. Meanwhile Germany’s Thang Duc Nguyen is looking threatening on 50,000.
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