Day 3 Begins: The Money Bubble Looms
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!