2012 PokerStars.com EPT Sanremo: Tompkins Leads Final 24; Barnes Leads High Roller
The PokerStars Season 9 European Poker Tour Sanremo continued on Tuesday with Day 4 action from the Casino Sanremo. The remaining 66 players from a 797-player field returned to battle down to the final 24. It took a little over five levels of play, but eventually the field was whittled and Jason Tompkins emerged as the chip leader with a stack of 2,423,000.
Tompkins got most of his chips in Level 22 when he opened from the cut-off and called when Amerigo Santoro three-bet to 74,000 from the small blind. The flop came down 8x5x4x and Tompkins called a continuation-bet, which brought the 3x turn.
When faced with a 120,000 bet, Tompkins raised to 285,000 and then snap-called all in when Santoro shoved. Tompkins opened pocket eights for a set but was behind the wheel of Santoro, who held Ax2x. The river came to Tompkin's rescue when a 3x fell to pair the board and give him the 2.5 million pot.
Boooooom, sickest hand ever!!! Just doubled entire stack #EptSanRemo #stackem
— jason tompkins (@blaaaaaah666)
Other notables who managed to make it through to Day 5 included Thomas Gabriel, Artem Litvinov, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Michael Benvenuti, Matt Salsberg, Micah Raskin, Jason Lavallee, Ludovic Lacay and the Day 3 and 4 chip leader, Inge Forsmo.
Not everyone was so lucky on Day 4, as Roberto Romanello (65th - €12,000), David Vamplew (62nd - €12,000), Mike Watson (59th - €12,000), Alex Roumeliotis (54th - €14,000), Day 1a chip leader Erion Islamay (52nd - €14,000) and Morten Mortensen (51st - €14,000).
In a hand at the tail end of Level 20, SCOOP superstar Shaun Deeb moved all in from middle position for 162,000 and received a call from Artem Metalidi in the small blind.
| [U]Showdown[/U] |
| Deeb: K♣Q♦ |
| Metalidi: 7♠7♥ |
"I got it in with my favorite hand," Deeb said before seeing the flop come down 3♠6♣A♠, which did not provide him with any help. The A♣ turn was just as useless, and Deeb needed either a king or queen on the river to stay alive. The dealer burned one last time and put out the 2♥. With that, Deeb was eliminated from the tournament in 48th place for €14,000.
Not long after, Angelo Recchia opened for 32,000 from the hijack and was met with a three-bet to 75,000 from Justin Bonomo on the button. Both players in the blinds cleared out, Recchia four-bet to 140,000, and Bonomo made the call. When the 10♦6♠Q♥ appeared on the flop, Recchia led out for a mediocre 65,000, and after thinking for a bit, Bonomo moved all in for 220,000. Recchia made a quick call and the cards were turned up.
| [U]Showdown [/U] |
| Bonomo: 9♣8♠ |
| Recchia: K♣K♥ |
Recchia held an over pair while Bonomo was drawing to a double-gutted straight draw. Unfortunately for Bonomo, neither the 4♦ turn nor 8♦ river completed it and his Main Event run came to an end in 36th place for €16,000. From there, Atanas Kavrakov (33rd - €16,000), Sofia Lovgren (30th - €19,000), and Isaac Haxton (26th - €19,000) all hit the rail before play came to end an for the night.
Day 5 action is set to kick off at 1400 CEST (0800 EDT) on Wednesday as the final 24 players will battle down to the final table of eight. You can follow the action in the PokerNews Live Blog.
EPT Sanremo €10,000 High Roller
Day 1 of the €10,000 High Roller wrapped up on Wednesday. Seventy-four players entered, and after 10 reloads, a total field size of 84 entries was created. The prize pool stands at €823,200, and the top prize of €288,000 will go to the winner.
At the end of the night, 44 competitors remained. Brandon Barnes finished on top of the leaderboard with 211,700 in chips.
Day 1 was full of notable players, but not all of them could make it through to Day 2. Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier was one of those players to exit on the day, busting not once, but twice.
On his first elimination, Mercier lost with pocket nines to Bryn Kenney's pocket jacks after the money went in on the turn of a ten-high board. Then on his second elimination, Mercier's 10♠9♠ couldn't beat the A♣J♠ of Torsten Brinkmann, and he was eliminated.
Steve O'Dwyer was another player who busted twice on the day, while Sam Trickett, Mike "Timex" McDonald, Marc-Andre Ladouceur and Paul Berende all fired just one bullet and lost.
Of those remaining, Pier Paola Ruscalla (199,300), Justin Bonomo (190,600), Kent Roed (188,800) and Luca Pagano (188,600) all bagged up enough chips to be near the top of the leaderboard. Other notables remaining are Igor Kurganov, Kyle Julius and Govert Metaal.
Play will resume tomorrow at 1500 CET (0900 EST), so be sure to return right back here to PokerNews for all the live coverage.
Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook now!
