The penultimate day of the 2024 Coolbet Open Tallinn €550 Main Event brought back 191 survivors of the opening flights to their seats inside the Nordic Hotel Forum in Tallinn. Another 40 entries in the first level of the day increased the overall tally for the flagship tournament at the Chesterfield Poker Club up to 504 entries to generate a prize pool of €244,440.
After more than nine levels total, the action was halted once the final three tables were reached and Vadim Guk emerged as the comfortable chip leader after a late surge, which propelled his stack to 1,725,000. His nearest follower Steven Tool (1,065,000) is the only other player with a seven-figure stack thus far.
The home country dominates the overnight top ten with six players from Estonia present, while Iceland, Sweden and Norway are also have at least one of their own in the mix for the top third of the leaderboard.
Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 2
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vadim Guk | Estonia | 1,725,000 | 86 |
| 2 | Steven Tool | Estonia | 1,065,000 | 53 |
| 3 | Daniel Axelsson | Iceland | 990,000 | 50 |
| 4 | Laasik Kasso | Estonia | 920,000 | 46 |
| 5 | Madis Müür | Estonia | 850,000 | 43 |
| 6 | Seyed Tabaei | Sweden | 780,000 | 39 |
| 7 | Esko Brandt | Estonia | 765,000 | 38 |
| 8 | Anders Bjorkheim | Norway | 610,000 | 31 |
| 9 | Taavi Pusa | Estonia | 595,000 | 30 |
| 10 | Ludvik Gudmundsson | Iceland | 555,000 | 28 |
Among the most experienced players still in contention is well-known Estonian regular Madis Müür, who sits in fifth place with 850,000 in chips. Kaido Mikk is the only former Coolbet Open Main Event winner still in contention and will have a similar scenario for the final day as he had prior to the shuffle up and deal for Day 2: A short stack and mountain to climb, as he sits on just 360,000 (18 big blinds).
The only other previous champion, fellow Estonian Ott-Kaarli Toome, made a deep run once more and bowed out in 39th place for €1,225. Warm-Up winner Mateusz Jablonski followed right behind while the last two female contenders in the field - Ingvill Nilsen from Norway and Ave Lepik from Estonia - were the final two casualties of the night.
Guk's late surge towards the top of the leaderboard commenced with the dramatic elimination of Mario Jürgens, yet he nearly doubled his stack from there on after scooping several bigger pots without showdown.
Jürgens had bubbled the opening Warm-Up Event during the series here in Tallinn and was the player responsible for bursting the Main Event bubble. His pocket kings held up against the pocket queens of Leif Iversen to secure a min-cash of €1,000 for the top 62 finishers.
Notables to leave empty-handed without anything to show for include the Coolbet Twitch streamers Ylva Thorsrud and Christian Arstad, Ranno Sootla, Jari Hurri, Andreas Hoivold, Toni Ojala, Rob Perelman, Dan Tolppanen, as well as Joni Liimatta.
All remaining 27 players have locked up a cash prize of €1,375 so far, while reaching the nine-handed final table will secure at least €4,665 for the efforts. The winner can look forward to a top prize of €50,000 for the seventh edition of the Coolbet Open Main Event.
With 49:14 minutes left in level 19 at blinds of 10,000-20,000 and a big blind ante of 20,000, the bottom ten players on the leaderboard have fewer than 20 big blinds at their disposal and that could make for a frantic opening stage for the final table.
The conclusion of the tournament is scheduled to kick off at noon local time on Saturday, August 31, 2024, and the action will be streamed on the Coolbet Twitch channel. All PokerNews updates for the final day will be published according to the 30-minute security delay of the live stream action.
History of the Coolbet Open Main Events
| Year | Location | Entries | Prize Pool | Winner | Country | Top Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Tallinn | 425 | € 205,525 | Sebastian Wahl | Finland | €50,100 |
| 2018 | Tallinn | 589 | € 285,665 | Mats Albertsen | Norway | €60,510 |
| 2019 | Tallinn | 531 | € 252,685 | Mathias Siljander | Finland | €60,100 |
| 2019 | Tallinn | 686 | € 332,710 | Ott-Kaarli Toome | Estonia | €71,700 |
| 2022 | Tallinn | 652 | € 312,960 | Kaido Mikk | Estonia | €65,700 |
| 2023 | Bratislava | 620 | € 300,000 | Ville Hakala | Finland | €60,000 |
| 2024 | Tallinn | 504 | € 244,440 | TBD | TBD | €50,000 |
