Former EPT Champion Oleksii Khoroshenin Leads After Day 3
Day 3 of the 2015 European Poker Tour Barcelona €5,300 Main Event started out with excitement, as the €8,215,900 prize pool was announced. The remaining 343 players were made aware that the top 247 would reach the money, but it was the mouth-watering €1,420,500 first-place prize that had everyone's juices flowing.
Coming into Day 3, the man best positioned was Nick Petrangelo. At the end of the day, he was still alive, but had slipped back and finished on 400,000. Oleksii Khoroshenin took over as the tournament's overnight chip leader with a massive day and bagged up 1.708 million.
The Ukranian Khoroshenin has now put himself in prime position to win a second EPT title. In 2014, Khoroshenin won the EPT Vienna Main Event for €578,392.
Throughout the day, plenty of notables fell, some before the money and some after.
Those that hit the rail before a cash were Isaac Haxton, Jason Gray, David Vamplew, Lynn Gilmartin, Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier, and Max Greenwood. Then with 250 players left in the field, Jonas Lauck and Diego Ventura were eliminated to set the tournament on the official bubble.
With hand-for-hand play already underway, Anastasios Vrakas found himself all in and at risk with the 
against the 
for Dmitry Yurasov. The board ran out 
, and Vrakas was the tournament's official "bubble boy."
Once the money was reached, it was time for the eliminated players to begin filing in the payout line. Of those to bust with a cash were Fatima Moreira de Melo (240th - €8,800), Mike Watson (233rd - €8,800), Andras Nemeth (208th - €9,450), Tobias Peters (188th - €9,450), Hugo Pingray (182nd - €10,350), Jani Sointula (149th - €10,350), and Natalie Hof (135th - €11,500).
Another player to bust was Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden, who was making his record-tying 20th cash in an EPT main event. The other player with 20 is Luca Pagano. Lodden was eliminated on the final hand of the night by Andre Akkari, who bagged up 982,000.
Two names from the remaining players that jump off the page to us are Anthony Zinno and John Juanda.
Zinno is a three-time World Poker Tour champion that won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet this past summer. To say he's hot would be an understatement, and he continues to showcase his abilities time and time again in major events. He bagged up an impressive 949,000 in chips, thanks in large part to winning a huge flip late in the day against Nacho Barbero that busted the latter.
Juanda also finished strong as the five-time WSOP gold bracelet winner bagged 914,000 in chips. The consummate professional played a very solid game all day, regularly using position on his opponents to his advantage and constantly chipping up.
There's also Jude Ainsworth, Jason Les, Matthias de Meulder, Jens Kyllonen, Patrik Antonius, Jeremy Ausmus, and Ryan Riess amongst the final 110 remaining.
Day 4 will commence at 12 p.m. local time on Friday, when another five 90-minute levels are on the schedule. Be sure to stay tuned right here to PokerNews for continued coverage of the event as the field plays closer to a winner in the largest EPT main event in history.
Until then, check out this video about flyboarding with Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov: