Finish player Jani Rasinen has doubled his stack to around 650,000 after he three-bet all-in for 320,000 against a potential blind steal from Jorge Lores on the button. Lores called with and was in bad shape against the Finn's dominating
The five community cards read and Lores had donated a large percentage of his stack to Rasinen in seat one.
We caught up with Kristoffer Thorsson and Giuseppe Pantaleo on the flop. The action went like so:
Flop: - Thorsson bet out 65,000 and Pantaleo called.
Turn: - Thorsson bet out 130,000; Pantaleo called.
River: - Thorsson bet out 230,000 and once again, Pantaleo called.
To showdown, and Pantaleo turned over . Whatever Pantaleo had we will never know, as he mucked. Thorsson was up to 1.3 million after that, Pantaleo down to 880,000.
Kristoffer Thorsson won another, smaller hand after that, so he was at around 1.4 million when Luis Rufas opened for 48,000. Thorsson re-popped him for over 100,000, but Rufas announced all in and Thorsson decided he didn't like his hand that much after all.
Allan Sice is no more after he clashed with Ognjen Sekularec and lost!
Sice opened the betting from under the gun at the six handed table to 37,000 and after asking how many chips Sice had, Sekularec three-bet to 95,000. The action folded back around to Sice who quickly moved all-in, just as quickly Sekularec made the call.
Sice:
Sekularec:
Final board : and with that, Sice is eliminated whilst Sekularec soars to 1,415,000.
Oh wow, just moments after acquiring a nice hefty stack, largely courtesy of neighbour Giuseppe Pantaleo, Kristoffer Thorsson has been reduced almost to the felt by the same.
It was blind on blind, with Thorsson in the small blind and Pantaleo in the big. There was a very short raising war, and they got the chips in preflop.
Thorsson:
Pantaleo:
Pantaleo couldn't watch - he went over to the rail and stood there, facing out.
Board:
Konstantin Puchkov for a laugh, cried, "Oooh!" on the turn, then giggled when Pantaleo turned around with alarm. But the real reaction from Pantaleo came on the river - "YEAH MAN!!!" he cried. At 1.7 million he is our new chip leader. The unhappy Thorsson was left with just 280,000.
Thomas James Finneran has been eliminated in 25th place sending the tournament on an early finish.
Finneran found himself all in with and was unfortunate to run into Guiseppe Pantaleo holding .
The flop helped neither player but the on the turn made a split pot a real possibility. All thoughts of that happening were quashed though, when the peeled off on the river.
That took Pantaleo to 2,309,000 chips, which makes him our overnight chip leader
We were not expecting the road from 112 players down to 24 to fly by so fast, but here we are, barely past suppertime, and we have our final three tables ready to go.
Chip leader as we head into the penultimate day is German online qualifier Giuseppe Pantaleo. He lurched into the lead after that double up through Kristoffer Thorsson, and cemented his lead when he knocked out Thomas James Finneran on the last hand of the night. He heads into the business end of this tournament on 2,309,000.
Also still in with a shot at the title are WSOP bracelet winner Konstantin Puchkov, online qualifier Domink Nitsche, and Amsterdam Master Classics winner Kristoffer Thorsson - although the latter is rather short following that nastiness with Mr. Pantaleo.
Curiously, this is the first EPT in a while where we have had no former EPT winners still in the running at this stage of the tournament. We are therefore guaranteed to be crowning a brand new winner here in Barcelona by the end of the week.
We'll be back here at the Casino de Barcelona tomorrow from noon, when we'll be playing right down to a final table. We look forward to your virtual company then.