Italy's Renato Messina Leads Final Nine of the Kings of Tallinn Main Event
Italy's Renato Messina ended Day 1a of the 2020 Kings of Tallinn €1,100 Main Event at the Olympic Park Casino and the Hilton Tallinn Park with the chip lead and now has the chip lead when it counts heading into tomorrow final table of nine players with a stack of 4,175,000.
Messina has a chance to score by far his biggest live poker tournament cash with the winner of the Main Event tomorrow slated to receive a huge six-figure haul of €141,800. Messina's biggest cash thus far came a few months ago when he finished in fifth place in the WSOP International Circuit Rotterdam Main Event for €23,332.
Day 3 Action
The penultimate day began with 82 players remaining from the record-breaking field of 674 entrants with 80 guaranteed at least a min-cash of €2,100.
It took a few hands before the first elimination took place when Lithuania's Audrius Navickas hit the rail and close to a full hour before the bubble broke when Estonia's Rain Heeringas had a big blind left in the big blind with nine-five suited and couldn't get there against the ace-ten held by Finland's Samuel Saariaho.
Eliminations took place at a fast and furious pace before it slowed down a bit with bigger pay jumps coming along.
Some of the players that cashed in the tournament but failed to advance to the final table included Ilari Sahamies (16th - €4,800), Mathias Siljander (32nd - €3,460), Chris Da Silva (52nd - €2,530), Team OlyBet Pro Raigo Aasmaa (63rd - €2,280), Finnish slots streamer Jari Lahtinen (67th - €2,100), and 2017 Kings of Tallinn Main Event winner Matias Knaapinen (78th - €2,100).
Finland's Kristjan Zitting was in the chip lead a good part of the day and once was approaching 7 million in chips. However, he doubled up Messina in a massive pot of nearly 5 million in chips after his queens were no good against kings.
Zitting is still in good shape heading into tomorrow's action with a second-place stack of 3,405,000, followed by Sweden's Johan Karlsson (third - 3,285,000), Norway's Borge Dypvik (fourth - 2,540,000), and Estonia's Ermo Kosk (fifth - 2,130,000).
Final Table Seat Draw
| Seat | Name | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Belov | Estonia | 1,200,000 | 24 |
| 2 | Borge Dypvik | Norway | 2,540,000 | 51 |
| 3 | Johan Karlsson | Sweden | 3,285,000 | 66 |
| 4 | Renato Messina | Italy | 4,175,000 | 84 |
| 5 | Kristian Zitting | Finland | 3,405,000 | 64 |
| 6 | Leo Pietila | Finland | 925,000 | 19 |
| 7 | Ermo Kosk | Estonia | 2,130,000 | 43 |
| 8 | Johannes Cleven | Norway | 2,000,000 | 40 |
| 9 | Dennis Berglin | Sweden | 640,000 | 13 |
The action resumes Sunday at noon with nearly 21 minutes remaining in Level 26 with blinds at 25,000/50,000 and a big blind ante of 50,000. All returning players will go home with at least a ninth-place payout of €8,600.
We will be covering all the action of the final table on a 30-minute delay and you will also be able to watch with hole cards at PokerNews by clicking on the Live Stream tab that will appear in our coverage when it is live.