Arnaud Mattern raises to $90,000 from the button and Juha Lauttamus re-raises to $275,000 total from the small blind. Kristian Kjondal gets out of the way in the big blind and the action is back on Mattern, who mulls things over before making the call. The flop comes Q T 9 and Lauttamus checks to Mattern, who bets out $90,000. Lauttamus thinks for a few minutes but lays the hand down and the pot goes to the Frenchman.

Juha Lauttamus pops it up to $85,000 from the cut-off and after a minute or two Markus Golser calls from the big blind.

The flop comes J 6 5 and Golser shoves all-in. Lauttamus thinks about it but eventually calls, flipping over Q J for top pair. Golser shows K 10 for the massive draw which includes an overcard, flush draw and back door flush draw.

The turn comes 9 which gets Golser one card closer to a straight but the river is a devastating 7 meaning Golser is finished.

The Austrian will earn €151,800 for his fifth-place finish.

Play has slowed considerably in this level, with the excitement coming from a few instances of pre-flop re-raises that have come to naught. The first hand saw Arnaud Mattern raise to $85,000 from under the gun and the action fold around to Markus Golser, who pushed all-in from the big blind. Mattern gave the matter some thought before eventually laying it down.

A round or so later, Mattern raised to $90,000 from UTG+1 and action folded to Gino Alacqua, who re-raised another $230,000 from the big blind, effectively committing himself to the pot. Again, Mattern ruminated for a few minutes but folded the hand.

And the beat goes on...

The game is afoot once more from the final table at PokerStars.com EPT Prague. Here are the updated chip counts as the action heats up anew:

Seat 1	Juha Lauttamus	$1,460,000
Seat 2	Kristian Kjondal	$1,200,000
Seat 3	Gino Alacqua	$763,000
Seat 4	Marcus Golser	$420,000
Seat 5	Mikael Norrinder	$0
Seat 6	Nedzib Suman	$0
Seat 7	Dag Palovic	$0
Seat 8	Johannes Strassmann	$0
Seat 9	Arnaud Mattern	$1,734,000

 

The remaining five players are now on a quick 15-minute break.

Nedzib Suman gets all-in pre-flop with A T and is called by Juha Lauttamus, who turns up a pocket pair of sevens. The board comes Q J 2 Q 9 and the sevens hold, sending Suman back to Sweden with a sixth-place finish worth €119,000.

Despite being quiet for most of the final table Kristian Kjondal has just made an important move.

Kjondal raised from the hijack but Dagomir Palovic moved all-in from the big blind. Kjondal thought for a couple minutes but then called.

Kjondal: A Q

Palavic: A 10

The board comes 8-4-3-9-A and the table's only Slovakian will have to settle for seventh place and €93,600.

Arno Mattern raises from the button which prompts Juha Lauttmamus to shove all-in for $450,000. Mattern thinks for a bit but eventually calls flipping over T T while Lauttamus shows K Q. We're off to the races and the flop comes J 9 3 which means Mattern's hand is still in the lead. Unfortunately for Mattern the dreaded K falls on the turn and Lauttamus takes the lead. The river falls 3 and Lauttamus has doubled-up, again.

After open-shoving the previous hand and turning up aces when nobody called, Juha Lauttamus moves all-in from under the gun for his last $244,000. Dag Palovic makes the call in the small blind and shows A Q to Lauttamus' A K. The board comes K J 7 K 3 and Lauttamus doubles through Palovic to stay alive at this final table.

For an unusually fast tournament, final-table play has become exceptionally slow. You might be able to blame it on the departure of the aggressive calling Mikael Norinder but whatever the cause we are not seeing many flops.

The most exciting thing in the last 20 minutes or so has been the tournament director yelling at Dagomir Palovic for making an all-in motion as a joke.

"You better be very careful, sir, or all your chips are going to be in the middle very quickly," he said.