WSOP Europe Main Event Day 3 sees Shaun Deeb and Barny Boatman Chase Glory

The latest action from Rozvadov saw the WSOP Europe Main Event reduce the field from 166 players to just 42 hopefuls as the money bubble burst on the Czech-German border. At the close of play, French player Alexandre Reard had the chip lead but with stars of the felt such as Shaun Deeb, Barny Boatman and Timothy Adams all in hot pursuit of the chip leader, the destination of the coveted Main Event bracelet and $1.3 million top prize is still anyone’s guess.

Early Eliminations Mix It Up

With a total of 763 entries battling it out for that seven-figure top prize, competition was fierce. With 53 players needing to bust for the bubble to burst, making it into the money places was everyone’s first priority. As the prizepool of $7,248,500 would see a top prize of $1,380,129 fought for, whoever finished in 115^th place would achieve a min-cash of $16,520.

Plenty would fall short of that profit line, however, and one of the first to go was the Swedish online poker sensation Viktor Blom. The former Full Tilt Poker phenom busted with eight-six of clubs, when he shoved the river with a busted straight-flush draw from the flop. It was the $50k WSOPE Diamond High Roller event winner Orpen Kisacikoglu who busted Blom, making a truly great call with just ace-high holding ace-king of clubs to send Blom to the rail with nothing. A stunning call and one that further underlines just how dangerous an opponent the Turkish bracelet winner can be.

Romanian player Vlad Darie is famed for his ability to put his opponent in the cage and he did that twice to Karim Rebei to bust the Algerian. First, Rebei bluffed with ace-high on a board showing K-T-5-Q-Q only to be called brilliantly by Darie with nine-five. Then, in the next hand to be played at the table, Rebei couldn’t win with seven-six suited when he shoved his short stack, Darie’s ace-ten of hearts hitting a ten on the flop and denying any comeback from his opponent to leave the Romanian among the chip leaders.

Flurry of Bust Outs Bursts Bubble

Players were dropping like the value of Cristiano Ronaldo’s clothing range in Manchester United’s megastore, and the eliminations were far from done. Edging closer to the money bubble, players such as Maureen Bloechlinger, Emil Bise, Dorian Melchers, ismet Oral, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Martin Loehn and Kenny Hallaert all lost their way. Hallaert’s elimination was a painful one, his ace-king losing to Gennaro Nevano’s ace-queen of diamonds after all the chips went in on the 8-4-2 flop with two diamonds, a diamond on the river meaning Hallaert’s hunt for a maiden gold bracelet will go on.

Players busting around the period before the bubble burst included British multiple WSOP bracelet winner Benny Glaser, Leonid Yanovski and Aaron Mermelstein, whose performance in the WSOPE Main Event mirrored his impressive early day form in the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas. He would fail to go any further, ruling himself out of playing in the 2023 WSOP Tournament of Champions at this stage. He’ll need to win gold before the tournament takes place next summer in Las Vegas to qualify.

As play reached the bubble, a late exit for Christian Rudolph saw the German’s departure put everyone on tenderhooks, one elimination away from the money. Eventually, it was Daewoong Song who was left on the rail without any profit despite making it all the way to 116^th place. His exit hand was a brutal one, too, pocket queens shot down by king-queen with all the chips in the middle pre-flop. The board of A-7-2-9-K was the cruellest it could be, a three-outer arriving on the river for Onur Unsal to skupper Song’s chances.

Reard Leads the Way

“Big names remain in the hunt for gold in Rozvadov [including] double WSOP bracelet winner Barny Boatman.”

After cashes for players such as Roland Israelashvili, Chris Frank, Mike Leah, Anton Morgenstern, Marco Streda, Alex Papazian, the aforementioned Orpen Kisacikoglu, Yuval Bronshtein and Goran Mandic, play ended for the night with the French professional Alexandre Reard top of the charts.

Reard piled up a stack of 5,100,000 chips, with Lithuanian player Vladas Tamasauskas (4,645,000) and Bulgarian Boris Kolev (4,250,000) rounding out the podium places. Also present in the top five were Jonathan Pastore (3,720,000) and Bernd Gleissner (3,660,000), while others to make the top ten included five-time WSOP event winner Shaun Deeb (2,475,000) and Israel’s Saar Wilf (2,290,000).

A host of other big names remain in the hunt for gold in Rozvadov, with double WSOP bracelet winner Barny Boatman (1,150,000) chief among them in terms of experience. He’s not the only shrewd player looking to make history, however, with Patrik Zidek (1,925,000), Gab Yong Kim (1,555,000), Timothy Adams (1,345,000), Michal Mrakes (690,000), Quoc Nguyen (680,000), Tobias Peters (575,000) and even the short-stacked Simone Andrian (320,000) all still in with a chance.

With the penultimate day of action taking the field down from the 42 remaining players to a final table of six, all the action will be streamed as-live on a one-hour delay, just as it was yesterday as the WSOPE Main Event Day 3 action took place thrilling poker fans. At this stage, the next place’s payout will be worth $29,562, but each and every player left in the field will be eyeing that $1.3 million top prize and hoping that the WSOP Europe Main Event bracelet has their name on it.