2011 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Loutraki Day 3: Kapernopoylos Leads
On Friday, 100 players returned for the race to the money on Day 3 at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Loutraki. Team PokerStars Pro Toni Judet began the day as the chip leader with 288,200 and was looking to score his best finish at an EPT. Judet managed to make it through the day but slid down the pecking order, with fellow Team Pro Jude Ainsworth joining him. Team PokerStars Pros Ana Marquez and Johnny Lodden both were eliminated during Day 3.
Charalampos Kapernopoylos finished on top of the pile with 892,500. The Greek player was among the leaders for most of the day but then moved into the lead by eliminating two former champions. First he knocked out David Vamplew holding top pair against Vamplew's failed bluff all-in. Later on in the day, he made a full house against Kevin MacPhee who rivered a flush, sending MacPhee packing, while boosting his own stack to almost 1 million chips.
Rupert Elder, the former EPT San Remo champion, was chip leader for much of the day after eliminating fellow big stack Dobromir Nikov. In the hand, Elder flopped the nut flush with A♦2♦ and made a huge overbet shove on the river, to which Nikov couldn't fold. Elder almost hit the 700,000 mark but ran ace-king into aces and then bluffed off a few chips, yet remained within the chasing pack by the end of the day.
His fellow former champions, Roberto Romanello, MacPhee and Vamplew didn't fair so well. Romanello lost a flip with nines to ace-queen and was eliminated before the money, but Vamplew and MacPhee both managed to min-cash.
Vamplew was almost the stone cold bubble, but managed to win a crucial flip against Jason Wheeler with A♦K♦ against Wheeler's Q♦Q♠. Wheeler was left short but also doubled with jack-ten against ace-jack to survive for a min-cash.
Roman Makhlin was the bubble boy after he moved all-in from under the gun for his final 18,500. He then proceeded to wander away from the table to tell one of his friends that he was all-in before coming back, much to the bemusement of the rest of the table. Makhlin was warned that he would get a penalty if he won the hand, but Christopher Lastiwka reraised all-in and tabled A♠K♥ to Makhlin's K♠K♣. Makhlin needed to fade an ace, but the board ran out A♣3♣Q♦9♥J♠ sending him home and everyone else into the money.
Other players moving on to Day 4 include former Snowfest finalist Koen De Visscher and the two Day 1 chip leaders, Julian Herold and Mario Puccini. However, they're all trailing our hometown chip leader Kapernopoylos, who'll no doubt be hoping to secure his place on Sunday's final table.
Play kicks off on Saturday at 1200 EET (0200 PST) and will conclude when a final table is reached. PokerNews will be there bringing you all the action from the felts at EPT Loutraki.
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