The Race to the Money on Day 3 of the EPT 11 Deauville Main Event

Two starting days and yesterday's Day 2 have reduced the field of 592 entrants of the €5,300 PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event to 138 hopefuls and 87 of them will be at least €8,810 richer. That's only a temporary goal though as everybody's eyes are set on the €543,700 first-place payout and opportunity to engrave the own name into the history books of the European Poker Tour.

In about two hours from now on at 12 p.m. local time, the action will resume in level 15 with blinds at 1,500 - 3,000 and a running ante of 400. As of today and until the winner gets crowned on Saturday February 7th, the level duration increases to 90 minutes each. Day 3 is foreseen to play a total of five levels with a 20 minute break after each level and the money will be reached during that time. Bagging and tagging should occur around 20:45 local time (CET), as there is no dinner break.

Leading the field is Ireland's Alex Tikhoniouk 312,600 chips in his maiden participation of an EPT Main Event. Not far behind is a much bigger name of the international poker circuit in former EPT champion and EPT 11 London runner-up Kevin MacPhee (308,300) whereas Robert Schulz completes the podium with 296,900 in chips. It wouldn't be a surprise to see yet another deep run of a German as the first two titles in Season 11 went to the host country of the upcoming World Series of Poker Europe later this year.

Big stacks include such stellar names as PokerStars Team Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (281,500), Benjamin Pollak (275,000), Nicolau Villa-Lobos (230,600), Simon Ravnsbaek (197,600), PokerStars Team Pro Jan Heitmann (199,000) and Day 2 chip leader Guillaume Darcourt (172,600). Remi Castaignon won this very event in 2013 and is still in with 175,600 chips, EPT London champion Ruben Visser (158,200), Sergio Aido (146,000) and Eugene Katchalov (137,000) will all return with above-average stacks as well.

Day 3 blind levels: