Following the first four eliminations, Sebastian Till was the next player to leave the tournament on Day 3. Then Andreas Sarling, who had doubled up twice already, got his money in the pot holding on a flop. Diego Perez called holding for top two pair. No jacks, eights or sixes showed on the turn or river and Sarling was eliminated.
Four players have already been eliminated on Day 3. Manfred Bass went out first, followed by Steve Jelinek, Cyrille Chabot and Brandon Schaefer. Andreas Gülünay, with , called Schaefer's all-in behind and saw the flop come . The on turn gave Schaefer a flush draw, but a blank on the river gave Gülünay the pot. Brandon has left the TV table.
Andreas Sarling, from Åland, Finland, is the only Nordic player left on Day 3 in Dortmund, and he was short-stacked when the day began. Ten minutes into Day 3, Steve Jelinik moved all in from UTG with and Sarling called holding . The flop came . The turn was the , giving Jelinek an open-ended straight draw, but the on the river allowed Sarling's pair of jacks to hold up, and he is now on 73k. Jelinek dropped back to 27k.
In one of the first hands of the day, Brandon Schaefer finds in the small blind and Jiri Kulhanek tries to steal the pot by raising from the button with a short stack. Schaefer goes all in, covering Kulhanek ,who has to call with . The flop is and the turn is the , giving Kulhanek a straight and leaving Brandon drawing dead. The pot was 95k and Schaefer falls back to 145k.
It is the beginning of Day 3 of the PokerStars EPT German Open in Dortmund and the air is filled with excitement. 32 players remain, all already guaranteed a payday. Last night's sounds of relief and disappointment have been replaced by a quiet determination, and soon, the clacking of the chips will resume as the remaining players battle it out for a seat at Saturday's final table.
Diego Perez from Spain is in the lead with 361k in front of Canadian Michael McDonald, who is well known online as “Timex”. Claudio Rinaldi is in third, just ahead of Marco Liesy in fourth. Many eyes are going to be on the Dutch ace Marcel Luske and also on top American player Brandon Schaefer.
This is the top 10 so far:
Diego Perez 361600
Michael "Timex" McDonald 335700
Claudio Rinaldi 278700
Marco Liesy 278200
Johannes Strassmann 276400
Aniol Alcaraz 216200
Brandon Schaefer 202300
Andreas Gülünay 201100
Jan Heitmann 200400
Manfred Hammer 135300
To see the full chip count at the start of Day 3, click “chip counts” on the right hand side of this page.