Martini Tops Last 42 After Day 3; Sammartino and Zinno Among Big Stacks
The money bubble has burst on Day 3 of the 2019 World Series of Poker Europe €10,350 Main Event and 42 players out of 541 entries in the second-biggest WSOPE Main Event remain in contention for a seven-figure payday and the coveted gold bracelet at the King's Resort in Rozvadov.
After an impressive rush to the top of the leaderboard, Julien Martini has established a comfortable lead and claimed a stack of 5,959,000 to his name, well ahead of Dario Sammartino in second place with 3,897,000.
Sammartino may become the fourth player to reach the final table of the WSOP and WSOPE Main Event in the same year after finishing runner-up to Hossein Ensan in Las Vegas. The only other players to do so previously were Ivan Demidov in 2008 followed by James Akenhead and Antoine Saout in 2009.
Felix Schulze is third in chips with 3,079,000, Jorma Nuutinen (2,822,000) and Rifat Palevic (2,800,000) round out the top five. Other big stacks and notables that will return for Day 4 are Anthony Zinno (2,381,000), Jan-Peter Jachtmann (1,879,000), Daniel Rezaei (1,852,000), David "ODB" Baker (1,019,000), Maria Lampropulos (732,000), Roberto Romanello (600,000) and Martin Kabrhel (566,000).
UK's Harry Ross won his entry to the €10,350 Main Event by finishing 2nd to Kabrhel in the €1,700 WSOP International Circuit Main Event in March 2019 and bagged up 1,628,000 after a double in the final hands of the night while Mykola Kostyrko qualfiied through a $11 step satellite on partypoker and remains in contention with a stack of 407,000.
Defending champion Jack Sinclair fell short in his bid to defend the title and bowed out in the money, but the 2017 runner-up Gianluca Speranza (1,128,000) still has the chance to go one spot better. Other notables that took home a portion of the €5,139,500 prize pool on Day 3 were Anton Morgenstern, Benjamin Pollak, Dash Dudley, Joao Vieira, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Artur Rudenkov, Jeff Madsen and Roland Israelashvili.
No Cash for Deeb, Sievers Bubbles
Rainer Kempe, Davidi Kitai, Anatoly Filatov, Christopher Frank, Aymon Hata, Orpen Kisacikoglu, and Bartlomiej Machon were all gone early on and for 2019 WSOP Player of the Year contender Shaun Deeb, Day 3 came to an end just shy of the money bubble.
The last player to leave without anything to show for was Nicolas Sievers. As one of the shortest stacks remaining, he three-bet jammed the small blind with king-jack and Vadzim Lipauka called with ace-six suited. Sievers paired a king on the turn but a third club on the river let the money bubble burst.
Defending Champion Sinclair Among Casualties in the Money
Once the money bubble burst, the all-in showdowns kept coming at a rapid pace and among those to run out of chips were Ghattas Kortas, Michael Sklenicka, Markus Dürnegger, Jeff Madsen, Tobias Peters, Maxim Lykov and Francesco Delfoco. Madsen had doubled through Julien Martini only to send the chips back to the Frenchman shortly after when his queens failed to crack pocket kings.
Defending champion Jack Sinclair was nursing a short stack for most of the day and lost a flip with queen-jack against the pocket sixes of Anthony Zinno, as a six on the flop left Sinclair drawing dead on the turn.
Zinno had been down to a nub in the penultimate break of the day but the final two levels vaulted the two-time WSOP bracelet winner to an above-average stack. He also won a vital flip with ace-king suited against the pocket jacks of Joao Vieira to double and busted the fellow 2019 bracelet winner soon after.
Late Rush for Martini and Palevic
In the final two levels of the night, Martini cemented his top spot when he won a big pot off Harry Ross with a turned straight. Several players had to hand over their stacks to the Frenchman. Paulius Vaitiekunas suffered two bad beats to go from big stack to out, and his final hand he came up second-best with ace-king against the ace-ten suited of Martini. The mixed game specialist finished his riot by sending Jacob Baumgartner to the rail with kings versus queens.
For Anton Morgenstern, the day came to a crushing end. After the departure of Benjamin Pollak, Morgenstern held the lead on the feature table but lost two pots in quick succession to Jan-Peter Jachtmann and Rifat Palevic. Both were also involved in the final hand of Morgenstern, who flopped a set of nines only to see Palevic with ace-king for top pair and top kicker hit running diamonds for a four-flush.
The final 42 players bagged up for the night and will be back for another six levels of 90 minutes each on Day 4. The action recommences at noon local time on Tuesday, October 29th, 2019, with blinds of 12,000-24,000 and a big blind ante of 24,000. As of the fourth level of the day, the PokerGO live stream gets underway and the PokerNews team will be on the floor to provide all the action from start-to-finish.