PokerStars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun Day 3: Selbst Leading Final 24 and Defending Title Strong

Vanessa Selbst

Day 3 of the PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun came to a close on Monday as the field was cut down to its final 24 players. Leading the pack into Day 4 is defending champion Vanessa Selbst with 1.406 million chips.

When play began for the day, 74 players returned to the felt, but only 56 got paid. This meant that a handful of players would have to hit the rail empty-handed. Some of those players who were eliminated short of the money included Kevin Eyster, Ronnie Bardah, Team PokerStars Online’s Andrew Brokos, Todd Terry and Dan O’Brien. The official bubble-boy title went to Nick Binger who ended his tournament in 57th place.

Binger had a rough day filled with a lot of bad luck. First he had Adam Junglen on the ropes holding AA to Junglen’s AQ. The poker gods shined on Junglen, though, as the board ran out 842J10 to give him a flush and send Binger's rockets crashing.

Junglen was then the player who finished off Binger, having to come from behind again to do so. This time, Junglen cracked a pair of queens for Binger. Binger was all in preflop with QQ and Junglen held just one overcard with the AJ. The board ran out K872A to give Junglen an ace on the river and the winning hand.

Binger took it extremely well and left smiling. “I just keep telling people that bubbling builds character,” he said as he made his way to the rail. In fact, Binger hopped right back on his horse and was seen playing a satellite to the $10,000 Bounty Shootout later in the evening.

Once the money bubble broke, the players started dropping fairly quickly, as expected. The first to go was last year’s runner-up Mike Beasley. He was followed by a group of players that included Jerry Wong, Team PokerStars Pro Greg DeBora, Jeff Papola and Lee Markholt.

Selbst was able to build her stack steadily throughout the day, but it wasn’t until right at the end of the night that she took over the chip lead from Vincent Rubianes.

From under the gun, Olivier Busquet raised to 21,000. Rubianes reraised to 51,000 from the cutoff and then action fell on Selbst on the button. She four-bet to 109,000 and play folded back to Busquet. He folded and then Rubianes made the call. The flop came down 1052 and Rubianes checked. Selbst bet 129,000 and Rubianes made the call, making this pot awfully big between two of the largest stacks in the room.

The turn card added the J to the board and completed a possible flush draw. Both players checked to see the 3 put a fourth club on board on the river. Rubianes checked and Selbst bet 294,000. After tanking for a bit, Rubianes made the call, but only to muck his hand when Selbst tabled the KK for a king-high club flush.

Day 4 Table and Seat Draw

TableSeatPlayerChips
11Nenad Medic350,000
12Eric Froehlich420,000
13Vincent Rubianes1,023,000
14Taylor von Kriegenbergh289,000
15Aaron Overton907,000
16Olivier Busquet356,000
17Vanessa Selbst1,406,000
18Jean-Philippe Matte331,000
    
21Corey Hochman355,000
22Thomas Hoglund Jr.629,000
23Joe Tehan490,000
24Sukh Sandhu267,000
25Philippe Plouffe293,000
26David Stefanski162,000
27Adam Geyer803,000
28Ara Melikian233,000
    
31Dan Shak488,000
32Chris Tryba361,000
33Joseph Gibbons179,000
34Jacobo Fernandez813,000
35Tyler Kenney478,000
36Kyle Loman340,000
37Steve O'Dwyer507,000
38Jonathan Schroer231,000

Play resumes on Tuesday at 12 p.m EDT (1600 GMT) when the final 24 players will return to action and play until one final table of eight is left. There's plenty of firepower still left in the field, but it's Selbst's tournament now and it doesn't look like she's ready to give up her title anytime soon. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for all of the live coverage from the event as only our world class Live Reporting Team can bring it to you!

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