Luck has run out on Dave Colclough after all. In a blinds only pot, he flopped three of a kind with the A 6 on a flop 8 6 6 . He checked, big blind Kirill then bet 6K, and Dave check-raised to 12K. The Russian then moved in for all his money with the J 7 for a semi-bluff with a flush draw. Dave called 22K more all-in and survived the turn - but not the river. A third club meant that the following players have qualified for Sunday:

• Mark Teltscher 232,200
• Jonas Hellnes 190,200
• Kirill Gerasimov 175,100

• Dean Shallow 134,700
• Daniel Burke 116,000
• Ram Vaswani 89,800
• Istvan Novak 66,800
• Graham Clarkson 52,800
• Anthony Girasole 47,800
• Richard Gryko 29,800
• Jaime Ponte 23,500
• Frank Callaghan 21,900

Anyway, that's it from me for tonight. Tomorrow at 3 p.m I'll be back for the second group of 118 players. From a cold and rainy London, I say: Take care, you guys - and see you all tomorrow!

Down to two tables, we have three big stacks. With a total of 1.18 million chips in play, the man who busted out Greg Raymer has the most chips now: Mark Teltscher with about 225,000. Seated immediately to his right is Jonas Helstokk with 148,000 - someone who obviously won't be very happy about this massive stack having position on him. And on the other table, the strong Kirill Gerasimov has gotten hold of no less than 160K. Kirill, someone who is known to come to final tables short on chips, now is suddenly in excellent shape to book a major success here. With Rene Petersen and Ian Woodley out, we need to get rid of just one more player - and then we can wrap it up for tonight.

Greg Raymer is out! All-in before the flop with QQ against AK, he was in front until the river... but a king busted out the FossilMan.

In the meantime, Lady Luck keeps smiling on "El Blondie" Dave Colclough. Moving in with nines, he ran into aces, but... hey, you know the story. Dave has 55K now.

Two notable exits. Simon Trumper lost an important pot with KK against 77, and was finished off shortly thereafter. And the last remaining Dutchman Sven Polarski is out as well. He had lost an important pot with top pair against an openender + overcards, and from there started running into trouble. He said that he had been playing well, with just one possible mistake: only flatcalling "HangMan" Paul Roper's raise with an AQ. Now, Sven had to fold after the flop, and the Irishman showed him 44 - a hand he would almost certainly have folded against a reraise by the Dutchman. Some chip counts from the players who are still in:

• Greg Raymer 75K
• Dave Shallow 80K
• Kirill Gerasimov 39K
• Richard Gryko 47K

• Rene Petersen 63K
• Ram Vaswani 42K
• Jonas Helstokk 126K (chipleader, real name: Hellnes. His father Tor Hellnes is a famous bridge player)

George McKeever has just busted out when he made a move with KJ but ran into kings. 24 players left, with blinds of 1,500-3,000 and a 200 running ante. As I said, we will play down to the last 12 players.

As I am writing this, it seems our former chipleader Greg Raymer is starting to run into a bit of trouble.

Dave Colclough has just doubled up to 37K. On a flop Q43 with two clubs, he bet out with top pair and got raised by Richard Gryko's king-high flush draw. He made a good call with the Q8, being in front, but when a king came on the turn he was suddenly trailing - with very few outs to improve. Another queen on the river saved El Blondie though.

Another excellent player who has been able to stay alive: Simon "Aces" Trumper. He has come back from being very short on chips to a healthy 24K stack, almost average. He is still trailing clearly to chip leader Greg Raymer though, who has built his chip lead even further. FossilMan now has 88,000, about three times the average stack.

Kevin O'Connell is out, losing with AT versus A5.

George McKeever, winner of one event at the 2004 Master Classics of Poker and a very experienced player, has just won a massive pot. In the small blind, he had kings. One player limped with aces, another player raised with queens, and then the Irishman moved in with his kings. The aces reraised all-in, the queens were able to lay down, and the inevitable king flopped. George now has 40K in chips.

Julian Thew is out. Being shortstacked, he moved all-in with T 8 , got called by A Q , and both an ace and a queen flopped. Also out are Haim Kakoun and Kjersti Grini.

An official word from the tournament director Joe McCann. 118 players today (out of the possible 128), and tomorrow another 118, for 236 players total. Out of the top of my head I say that the prize pool must then be £708,000, give or take a few thousand pounds. So, first prize must be about £240,000 then - not bad for a couple days of work.

The 25 chips are now being raced off, the blinds moving up to 800-1,600. Six tables left, for about 50 players total.

One other big stack I just noticed is yet another Scandinavian: Tobias Persson with about 52,000. As in the Barcelona event, the Scandinavians are very young... and very strong. Televised table chip counts at the break:

1. Manou 5,200
2. Simon Trumper 8,200
3. Paul Roper (they call him "HangMan" - really!)
4. Dave Colclough 25,100
5. Richard Gryko 32,200
6. Gusten Sjoberg 20,600
7. Sven Polarski 10,100
8. Kjersti Grini 9,200

A few recent developments:

• Greg Raymer lost 20K off his stack with JJ against KK, all the money in before the flop. The former world champion was now down to 28K, but got some of his chips back with 88 against KK, his opponent all-in before the flop - but a delightful eight on the river. Greg has been the center of attention all day, as he is one of the few real Poker Stars in action today. He keeps the pressure on with his highly aggressive game, and has his opponents playing scared. He now has no less than 72,000 in chips, and is the clear chipleader again.
• Julian Thew made a move with this same 88 on the flop Q97, but his opponent had a KQ and simply called him. The sympathetic Englishman is now down to 6,500. Another Englishman, Dave Shallow, has about 35,000 and is one of the bigger stacks in this event.
• The luck for the Dutch has turned. Polarski is down to about 12K at the televised table, and Michiel Brummelhuijs is even out now. Michiel said that he basically butchered the all-important pot. He had an AJ and came over the top of Kirill Gerasimov, thinking his opponent had just had 8K left. But the Russian actually had 13K, and his queens won a huge pot. The Dutchman was shortstacked then, and holding KT, he was finished off by the same Kirill, who held A 6 . The strong Russian, one of my favorite players on the circuit (because he has a "never give up" mentality that very few players have) now has 35K.

Good news for the Dutch. Not just has Polarski gotten a lucky draw on the televised table with small stacks to his left and big stacks to his right, there's also Michiel Brummelhuijs with a slightly-above average stack of about 21K. About 60 players left, and because the blinds have risen quickly and will continue to rise quickly, lots of casualties are expected in the next two hours. It is management's intention to play down to the last 12 players, so that we can start the final day with 24 players - three tables of 8 players each.

I just talked to a young man called Rene Petersen. He had just won a huge pot with AQ against AA to stay alive, hitting a second queen on the river, for what he called "the biggest suck-out of his career". He told the entire story about how the hand was played, when I interrupted him and asked: "Shouldn't you be going back to your table?" He answered: "No man, I am too hyped up now. Even if I got aces now, I wouldn't know how to play them properly."

Another Scandinavian, Sverre Sundbo, has just lost a pot with kings against queens, and is down to 15K now. We have about 8 tables left out of the initial 12 or so. So, in fact there may have been more than 100 runners today after all, but I have not gotten the official figures yet.

Two more big stacks (in addition to my dear friend, fellow Dutchman Sven Polarski) are Kjersti Grini, a Norwegian woman who plays very aggressively and has about 25K in chips now. And Greg Raymer is really killing the televised table. He has knocked out no less than two players in about 15 minutes, and now has close to 40K in chips - making him the chipleader in this event by far.

As I am writing this, Kjersti Grini has been transferred to the new televised table, with mostly players from the "Table of Death" that I already mentioned. Kjersti has lost two important pots and is suddenly down to 5K now. At this table, there is also Richard Gryko with about 38K in chips. He gained these chips in a pot where he had AA for a flopped overpair against someone with top pair. On this new televised table are also Sven Polarski, still with 27K, Simon Trumper with 5,600 and young Swede Gusten Sjoberg with 17,500.

One more casualty: Vicki Coren. Blinds now 400-800 with a 25 ante.

"Bad Girl" Xuyen Pham had a lot of chips before - but now she is out, as are Lawrence Gosney and John Gale. We have started today with 10,000 in chips, and the blinds are now 200-400. A random chip count:

Table G: Sven Polarski 28,000, Kjersti Grini 15,500

Table R: Michiel Brummelhuijs 11,500, Julian Thew 7,300, Kirill Gerasimov 19,300

Table S: Peter Gunnarsson 15,100, Jonas Helstokk 12,200

Table T: Simon Nowab 12,900, Simon Trumper 4,900, Dave Colclough 10,900, Richard Gryko 12,200, Stuart Nash 6,200

Televised Table: Greg Raymer 16,000, Richard Ashby 10,600

Spread among the other tables are: Sverre Sundbo 16,900, Pascal Perrault 2,500, Ram Vaswani 10,000, Anders Berg 5,200, Balrog 14,900, Bjarne Martinusson 16,000, Bvdahl 6,700, Willie Tann 5,700, George McKeever 17,500, Dave Shallow 9,300, Patrick Powers 13,000.

A few developments just before the dinner break:

• Richard Ashby, better known as "Chuffty" on the Internet, is now at the Televised Table, together with former World Champion Greg Raymer.
• Barny Boatman and the winner of the EPT Barcelona, Jan Boubli, are both out.
• Simon Trumper lost a big pot when he made the nut flush on the turn, but this same card gave his opponent a full.

We have lost about 15 players so far. When play resumes, I will provide you guys with the first chip count of the night.

A big surprise: The tournament is no sell-out. We have at least three empty tables, and lots of tables just have 8 players. So, my guess is that today we will have 100 players tops. A big disappointment, but for whatever reason players have chosen to leave this event in the Vic aside. For instance, the Devilfish is still in Aruba.

Two players have been disqualified for swapping seats. Casino management had warned in advance that people who would sell their seats or swap them would be denied permission - and allegedly, this is exactly what these two players did.

While play was supposed to start at 4 p.m., there was a little delay for a rather funny reason actually: The chips in play were the exact same ones that were used for yesterday's supersatellite. For obvious reasons, management decided to replace these chips on last notice.

All in all, with people like Isabelle Mercier, Noah Boeken, Luca Pagano and Steve Vladar in action tomorrow, I have been able to recognize at least the following players: (Thanks for the help to my colleagues from the U.K. and Scandinavia)

Televised Table

• Seat 2: Haim Kakoun
• Seat 6: Greg Raymer

Table D (the Table of Death)

• Seat 1: Mike Lacey
• Seat 2: Simon Trumper
• Seat 3: Paul Roper
• Seat 5: Richard Gryko
• Seat 8: Jan Boubli
• Seat 9: Stuart Nash

Table E

• Seat 5: Simon Nowab
• Seat 6: Bjarne Martinusson
• Seat 7: Barny Boatman
• Seat 8: Ringlurd

Table F

• Seat 2: Dave Clayton
• Seat 6: Kjersti Grini

Table G

• Seat 1: Sven Polarski

Table H

• Seat 6: Victoria Coren

Table J (another strong table)

• Seat 1: Mikael Thuritz
• Seat 3: George McKeever
• Seat 4: Ram Vaswani
• Seat 9: Willie Tann

Table K

• Seat 3: Kevin O'Connell
• Seat 8: Pascal Perrault

Table L

• Seat 1: Balrog
• Seat 2: Bvdahl

Table M

• Seat 2: John Gale
• Seat 3: Martin Knape
• Seat 7: Peter Eichhardt
• Seat 9: Lawrence Gosney

Table N

• Seat 2: Anders Berg
• Seat 7: Xuyen Pham

Table R

• Seat 1: Michiel Brummelhuijs
• Seat 3: Jan Sjavik
• Seat 7: Kirill Gerasimov
• Seat 9: Julian Thew

Table S

• Seat 3: Peter Gunnarsson
• Seat 4: Jonas Helstokk jr.
• Seat 6: Ben Grundy

Table U

• Seat 2: Bollik
• Seat 3: Sverre Sundbo

Just 30 minutes away from the start of the EPT. This is the deal: 128 players will start today, and then a second group of 128 players will play tomorrow. The last 16 or 18 players of these days will then play on the final day, October 2nd. All in all, 256 players will pony up the £3,000 here. If my information is correct, two major trumps from Holland will not be here: Rob Hollink and Marcel Luske, but I am not 100% certain about that just yet. Because of the kind permission of my dear friends Tony Kendall and Jen Mason, two of the driving forces behind Dave Colclough's Blondepoker, I will be able to provide you with some direct updates from the casino, and the photo updates will follow later from the hotel lobby I already mentioned. The action is about to start now, guys - so I would say: Back in a moment.

It is only three more hours until the start of the second stop of the EPT, in the Vic in London. The players will be divided in two groups, and both groups will actually be in action today. I don't know if this means the number of entrants will exceed the cap of 200 players, but I will try and find out. I will be going to the casino now, hoping that in fact the Internet facilities have miraculously changed for the better, but if not then I am confident that I will still be able to provide you guys with some good and up-to-date reports. Yesterday, it was not very crowded inside the Vic yet, not even close to the hectic situations we experienced in Barcelona last week, but things may be entitely different today. I will check things out for you now, and will be back in a couple of hours - say, two hours after play has started.

The Poker Circus that is called European Poker Tour now has its second stop of the second season. After a highly succesful first stop in Barcelona, where the venue was absolutely packed, we are now in the famous casino that so many British top players still call their "office": The Grosvenor Victoria in London, better known as the Vic. With a maximum number of 200 entrants, I have no doubts that we will have a sell out here. The event is a £3,000 no limit hold'em freeze-out (a buy-in of a bit more than $5,000) and will be played over three days - starting September 30th at 4 p.m. local time, and the final two days later, October 2nd.

That's the good news. But there is also bad news. As I always do when I cover an event for Poker Pages, I go to the casino the night before the start to check out the computer facilities that are available to the members of the press - and in this case, things don't look good. John Duthie had called the casino to make sure they would get a wireless system, but unfortunately he made this call just yesterday, meaning that the people in London will probably not get the job done in time. Casino management then kindly offered me to use their office for the weekend, but unfortunately the computers I could use over there didn't have any Internet access! I have been told that there are only two computers in the entire building that have direct Internet access: the two computers of the executives; all other employees can only get hold of e-mail facilities - but not Internet. Trying the regular network cable system gave no results either, so I highly doubt that at the start of the event we will have a working system. Of course, I will try and keep the pressure on, and use any influence that I may have to get things running after all, in order to provide you guys with my usual fast and up-to-date reports. However, if things do not work tomorrow (as I expect will be the case), I will have no other option but to walk back and forth to my hotel and do the updates from there. I have a working wireless system in my hotel, and fortunately this is just a 10-minutes walk from the casino, so this way you guys would still get my usual type of reports - albeit updated a bit less frequently than usual.

OK, that's about it from me for now. Tomorrow in the afternoon I will be back with lots of stories, developments, hands, upsets, rumors and as always lots of photos. Out of the lobby of my hotel, I say: Take care you all - and we will talk again tomorrow.