The third day of the €1,100 Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event at the 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona has come to an end and Ferdinando D'Alessio leads a field of 26 that will return on Sunday for Day 4.
The record-breaking event drew a field of 7,398 and built a prize pool of €7,102,080, from which €676,230 will eventually go to the winner.
D’Alessio is the only player with over 20,000,000 chips, and he is followed by Avihai Smadga and Joshua James on the leaderboard. Ankit Ahuja and Eduard Barsegyan round out the top five chip counts.
Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Name | Country | Chips | Day 4 Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ferdinando D'Alessio | Belgium | 22,225,000 | 89 |
| 2 | Avihai Smadga | Israel | 19,875,000 | 80 |
| 3 | Joshua James | Canada | 15,525,000 | 62 |
| 4 | Ankit Ahuja | India | 15,325,000 | 61 |
| 5 | Eduard Barsegyan | Russia | 14,175,000 | 57 |
| 6 | Diogo Ferreira | Brazil | 12,350,000 | 49 |
| 7 | Petros Karadimos | Greece | 10,300,000 | 41 |
| 8 | Marcos Diego | Spain | 9,900,000 | 40 |
| 9 | Lucas Silva Rocha | Brazil | 8,925,000 | 36 |
| 10 | Louis Nyberg | Sweden | 8,725,000 | 35 |
Day 3 Highlights
Igor Kaufman started Day 3 as the chip leader and he was joined near the top of the leaderboard by PokerStars Ambassador Parker Talbot. Talbot continued his run for part of the day – at one point crossing 7,000,000 in chips – but he fell back to the pack throughout the later parts of the day and before he bounced back to finish with a bag of 6,475,000 for Day 4.
Kaufman also remains in the tournament thanks to a run that started early when he took out Dionysios Kartsampas in Level 26. The Day 2 chip leader was behind after Kartsampas flopped a better pair of aces, but the turn brought two pair for Kaufman – sparking a run that ended with a bag of 7,675,000 for Day 4.
Among the other big stacks at the end of Day 3 are Ahuja, Smadga, and James. Smadga was the Day 1e chip leader and he continued to climb on Day 2 before his big Day 3 left 19,875,000 in the bag. Ahuja built his stack steadily throughout the day before a big run in the late levels gave him 15,325,000 for Day 4.
James also went on a late run, capped off with the elimination of Rolando Camardese in the last level of the night. He will return for Day 4 with 15,525,000. Carmardese had a run of his own throughout the day, thanks in part to a big pot in a hand with Catalin Pop. Pop called all three streets just to see Carmardese turn over a turned straight to take a bit pot.
Others that will return include Louis Nyberg, Tommy Nguyen, Hanseok Ko, Lucien Cohen, Lucas Silva Rocha, Kimmo Kurko, Mathias Haugen, and Day 1g chip leader Benjamin Tessier.
Action will continue on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. in Level 33 with blinds at 125,000/250,000/250,000. The plan is to play down to a final table and bag up to return for a live-streamed finale on Monday.
Be sure to keep it with the PokerNews team for live updates from the floor of your favorite tournaments at the 2023 EPT Barcelona.
