Day 3 Extinguished
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The final 86 players returned to the Alpine Palace for today's Day 3, and the first six of them eliminated went home hungry. The bubble popped at 80, and things rolled right along nicely from there.
Less than a half hour into play, Alfio Battisti offered himself up as a bubble sacrifice, though he probably didn't have that in mind when he moved in with
. Evgeniy Zaytsev gave him action with 
, and things initially looked very promising for the young Italian. A back-breaking board of 
rolled out, though, and Battisti became the last non-paid finisher thanks to that ugly beat.Casper Toft just managed to sneak into the money with his short stack, taking home a minimum cash for his 80th-place showing. Also among the small cashers today were Nicolo Calia, Bryan Paris, Zachary Hall, and Team PokerStars Pros Alexander Kravchenko and Lex Veldhuis. Christophe de Meulder, Johannes Steindl, and Vadim Markushevski managed to tread water for a bit longer, but they too slipped under the surface before night's end.
That leaves Richard Toth (Hungary) and Johannes Strassmann (Germany) to carry the torch for the Team PokerStars Pros. They're both chasing a few "PokerStars Players" though. Allan Baekke absolutely destroyed his table in the latter stages of the day, and he managed to bag up a very impressive 2.867 million chips. We'll have to wait for the rest of the official counts, but it looks like he has a nearly 2-to-1 chip lead over Brent Wheeler and Max Lykov, his nearest rivals. Not too shabby for Mr. Baekke!
Lykov deserves a second quick mention for another fine performance here. You may or may not remember that he won EPT Kyiv earlier this season. Or that he took third in the $5,000 Shootout event at the 2009 WSOP. Or his win in the $1,000 side event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. That lack of name recognition will surely change, though, if he can manage to add this victory to his stat sheet. Two EPT wins (let alone two in the same season) is the stuff of legends, and Lykov is well in contention to pull off that feat with two days of poker left to be played.
That's about all we have for you from Saalbach-Hinterglemm for tonight. The 24 who bagged up chips are headed to bed or to the bar, and they'll be back here at 2:00pm CET tomorrow for the race to the final table. We'll be here too, and we hope you'll join us again!