Sixty-three players will make their way to the sixth floor of the Swissotel in the heart of Tallinn, Estonia today and by the time play draws to a close only 24 of them will be bagging up chips and returning for Day 4 on Saturday.
Also, out of the 63 surviving players 23 of them will be going home empty handed with nothing but memories to show for their efforts over the past week. Those fortunate enough to make it through the money bubble will each lock up no less than €6,500 and will give themselves a realistic chance of taking home the €275,000 first place prize.
Leading the way going into Day 3 is Sweden's Nikolas Liakos who starts the day with 460,200 chips, 60,100 more than his nearest rival Lari Sihvo. Coincidently, these two huge stacks are seated not only on the same table, Table 2, but are also sat right next to each other whcih creates a very interesting dynamic indeed.
Other tables of interest include Table 3 where Sami Kelopuro is sat next to Roberto Romanello and they will be kept company by Jani Sointula and Oscar Lima, whilst Table 5 is the home to two American players in Jeff Sarwer and recent WSOP bracelet winner Joe Ebanks.
But for me the table of the day is Table 7, though it could break quite early on if there are a flurry of elimination. Table 7 is the home to the talented Ronny Kaiser, John O'Shea, Team PokerStars pro Arnaud Mattern and Irene Baroni. Our colleagues on the PokerStars blog described Baroni as a mixture between Dario Minieri and Annette Obrestad and we have to agree as she has played some fantastic aggressive poker over the past couple of days and is certainly one to watch.
Join us from 1200 noon for all the action as it happens, here at the Main Event of EPT Tallinn!
We mentioned how aggressive Irene Baroni has been playing so far in this tournament she is showing no signs of slowing down just yet, as she has just won her first pot of the day, on the very first hand she's played. The action folded to the Italian in the hijack seat and she opened to 5,100. Johan van Til, Arnaud Mattern and John O'Shea folded but Petri Vuolle eventually called after checking his hole cards several time.
Flop: - Vuolle lead out with a 10,000 bet, a bet that Baroni quickly called.
Turn: - Vuolle instantly checked, Baroni paused for 10 seconds before betting a pile of purple and yellow chips worth a total of 14,000. This was enough to end the hand as Voulle released his cards into the muck.
We decided to start things off by observing the action on table three. First out of the blocks was Markus Lehmann, the German winning the first two hands in tussles against Jani Sointula and Sami Kelopuro. Then Oscar Lima won his first hand and this is how it went down.
Ron Paltto made a 6,000 raise from under the gun and the action folded around to Katri Kasper on the button and she silently dropped two yellow chips in front of her. Next to act was Jani Sointula in the small blind and he questioned whether Kaspers action was a call or a raise? It was quite obvious it was a call but because she had put multiple chips across the line and the amount was higher than a min-raise the floor declared it a raise. Kasper to her credit just kept quiet. Anyway, Sointula then folded and Oscar Lima four-bet from the big blind when he made it 26,500. Paltto moved out of the way and Kasper stared at her 60k stack and her hand several times before folding. Lima turned over the before dragging in the pot.
Praz Bansi has just been told that he folded the best hand over on Table 1 but does he believe the word of his opponent?
Bansi raised from early position to 5,400 and his only customer was Konstantinov Aleksandr Valerevish in the big blind. The flop came down and Valerevish checked, Bansi made a continuation bet of 6,300 and after rechecking his cards Valerevish check-raised to 16,000. Bansi went into the tank for over a minute, sitting completely still but his eyes darting between the pot, the flop and Valerevish. Eventually he folded and acknowledged Valerevish's "nice bet."
"What you have? Ace-king?" quizzed Valerevish, to which Bansi nodded and confirmed, "Yeah, ace-king," before asking "you?"
"Jack-ten" came the response. Whether he was telling the truth or not is irrelevant because Valerevish wins the pot regardless.
PokerStars qualifier Edgars Augstkalns is a happy bunny after securing a double-up. Twenty minutes of play had passed with no eliminations and Augstkalns was the first at risk as his three-bet all-in was called by Sander Laprik who had opened to 5,300 before Augstkalns committed his 30,100 from the next seat.
Laprik:
Augstkalns:
The board ran to make a Augstkalns a full house. He celebrated with a little fist pump to himself.
We now have a full house here in the Main Event, not in the hand ranking sense but the fact that everyone is now in their respective seats. Until moments ago Maksim Kolosov and Aneris Adomkevicius were nowhere to be seen but both have now taken their seats and are getting down to business.
It took more than 25 minutes but we've finally lost a player today. We missed the hand but Karl Mets, who came back with just 18,200, failed to recover. He won his seat via a live satellite so the blow of busting was softened by the cheaper entry fee.
![[user169505]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
- Vuolle lead out with a 10,000 bet, a bet that Baroni quickly called.
- Vuolle instantly checked, Baroni paused for 10 seconds before betting a pile of purple and yellow chips worth a total of 14,000. This was enough to end the hand as Voulle released his cards into the muck.
before dragging in the pot.
and Valerevish checked, Bansi made a continuation bet of 6,300 and after rechecking his cards Valerevish check-raised to 16,000. Bansi went into the tank for over a minute, sitting completely still but his eyes darting between the pot, the flop and Valerevish. Eventually he folded and acknowledged Valerevish's "nice bet."
to make a Augstkalns a full house. He celebrated with a little fist pump to himself.