Man Down
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. He must have thought it was a good omen to be dealt pocket aces on the first hand. He took a raised flop with the player seated on his right, Marty Smyth. We were busy scoping out all of the notable players who have turned up for Day 1b and weren't following the action. But Harry Demetriou, seated at the table and watching the hand develop, was overheard to ask, "Are we going to do this on the first hand?" He was referring to the fact that Smyth and Ververis seemed to be intent in getting their whole starting stacks of 200 big blinds into the middle.
Apparently that was exactly what they intended to do. By the time the river card was out on the felt to complete a board of
, all of the chips were in the middle. Ververis's aces had been out-flopped by Smyth's 
and never recovered. Ververis knocked the table in disappointment, stood up and beat a hasty exit from the Crown Poker Room.