Curious Hand Puts Demidov Ahead
With around 30,000 in the pot, we found Team PokerStars Pro Ivan Demidov (small blind) and Day 1 chip leader Perica Bukara (big blind) looking down at a flop. Actually, this is a lie - when we arrived, Demidov was looking at his chips, and Bukara was looking at Demidov. Eventually Demidov bet out 20,500 - but Bukara re-popped to 46,000. Demidov dwelled up for a while, and then called.
The turn was the and this time, after just a short pause, Demidov checked. Bukara thought about it for rather longer as a crowd of media and railers gathered around the table, before checking behind.
The river came down the and Demidov now tanked up for several minutes. He very slowly counted out 76,500, but didn't push it across the line. He sat very still for a while, before putting one yellow T5,000 chip back in his stack, pausing for another minute or so, and then pushing the 71,500 bet across the line. He returned his attention to his ipad, where he was perusing a Russian poker update site.
Now it was Bukara's turn to tank. He spent several minutes staring fixedly at the board, not moving. Eventually he turned to Demidov, who was at least pretending to be engrossed in his ipad. Demidov's eyes weren't moving, but after a while he clicked a link and a new page loaded. All this went on for a very long time, as Bukara continued to stare him down and Demidov continued to look at the internet.
Eventually Bukara folded and the media circle dispersed.
Bukara - 350,000
Demidov - 590,000