And with that, we are done for the day. In little more than four levels the field has been frankly decimated, down from 125 to our final 32. Croatian Dragan Galic, chip leader since Day 1, has once again come out on top -- slightly down from his peak of 1,600,000, but still very comfortably in the lead.
Young Dutchie Constant Rijkenberg did at one point nab the chip lead, but a few rather unfortunate hands towards the end of the day have left him a little less well off. Now Rijkenberg, along with Steven Silverman and David Eldar are all vying for second place at around the 800,000 mark.
There's a fine field still in the running, though -- among those who will be coming back for Day 4 are Benjamin Kang and Sami Kelopuro. Join us here at PokerNews.com tomorrow from 2pm local time, when we'll be playing right down to the coveted final table.
Dragan Galic was so excited to have an opponent call his all-in bet on the last hand of the night. With the board showing , Galic moved all in against Giuseppe Argento. Argento, perhaps in double-up-or-go-home mode, called with a flush draw, . Galic was extremely excited to turn over his , clapping and yelling, "Yes! Yes!" excitedly. Argento was the one who got the last yell, pumping his fist and shouting "HA!" in Galic's face when the river fell to fill his flush. The two men shook hands and engaged in a manly hug after the hand -- clearly two fierce competitors who respect each other.
That pot pushed Galic down to 1.39 million, but he should still be the chip leader. Argento is up to about 300,000.
It was a rough end of the day for Dominik Palte. His stack spiraled downward in rapid fashion. He lost most of this remaining chips by trying to make a move with against Pietro Sibione. Sibione called with to take all but 20,000 of Palte's chips on a board of . Eduardo Burgio got the rest of Palte's chips on the next hand in another case of domination, against . Burgio flopped a ten and never looked back.
David Eldar has just doubled up through big stack Constant Rijkenberg, and when the hand was over, he thought he'd been eliminated.
The two traded raises before the flop, with Rijkenberg ultimately putting Eldar to a decision for all his chips. A call was made and the cards revealed:
Eldar:
Rijkenberg:
The flop was devastating for Eldar, as it gave his Dutch opponent top two pair. The then fell on the turn, giving Eldar a few additional outs with one card to come. Fortunately for him, the was one of them.
For a moment, it seemed as if Eldar was about to get up from his chair conceding defeat, but a table neighbor kindly informed him, "You won."
Eldar took lightly to the news, simply shrugging his shoulders as he stacked his new chips -- 840,000 of them in total. After the hand, Rijkenberg dropped to right around 800,000.
With the board reading , small blind Dragan Galic and big blind Giuseppe Argento checked to Dennis Bejedal on the button, who bet 30,000. Galic called, Argento folded, and they proceeded to the river.
River:
Now Galic bet out 100,000, leaving Bejedal with a real decision. Eventually he called -- and it was an excellent decision. Galic turned over for a busted straight draw, and Bejedal's was good to propel him up to 575,000.
Stefan Raffay raised his button and was met by a reraise from Dominik Palte. Raffay went over the top for quite a lot, and eventually Palte folded, leaving himself on 155,000. Entirely, well, poker-faced, Raffay showed him , and moved up to 365,000.
Clearly unhappy, Palte open-shoved a few hands later, but got no callers and just picked up the blinds and antes.