Dmitry Yurasov raised to 35,000 on the button and Elie Saad defended his big blind. The flop came and Saad check-called a 35,000 bet. On the turn, Saad checked again. Yurasov had no intention of slowing down and fired 105,000, which Saad called.
Saad checked a third time on the river. Yurasov emptied the clip, this time coming up with a hefty bet of 240,000. Saad, one of the few amateurs left in the field, sunk back in his chair and counted out his stack. He called it off after a minute, but Yurasov showed him the bad news with for the nut flush.
Saad lost nearly half his stack in the hand and stood up from his chair to ease his emotions.
Right before the break, Martin Nikolov chipped up nicely without even going to a flop.
In two hands in a row, he reraised and took it down.
In the first hand, Louis Cartarius had opened to 35,000 and Benjamin Pollak made it 85,000 to go.
Nikolov decided to four-bet to 255,000 and both of his opponents folded. In the next hand, Cartarius came in raising again. He put in 35,000 but folded when Nikolov made it 100,000 to go.
The 17 remaining players are on their last 20-minute break of the day. One more full level of 90-minutes will be played.
In the third level of the day, just two players hit the rail. Armin Mette went broke with ace-queen on a queen-nine-eight flop. Benjamin Pollak held jack-ten and knocked the Austrian out in 19th place.
Guillaume Diaz finished in 18th after failing to improve his king-jack versus Bastian Dohler's pocket tens and Frederik Jensen's pocket kings. Mette and Diaz took home €19,640 for their accomplishments.
The level also saw the rise of 2014 PCA Champion Dominik Panka, who moved up to second place after lingering at the bottom of the standings for most of the day. The other remaining EPT champion, Jensen, became the victim of Panka's rise and trended downwards, but survived an all in with queen-trey versus ten-nine to stay in.
The chipleader is still Ole Schemion at 1,6 million, but Panka is not far away with 1,5 million.
Xixiang Luo open-shoved 169,000 from the cutoff. Frederik Jensen called all in for 87,000 on the button, and the blinds folded.
Xixiang Luo:
Frederik Jensen:
Luo flopped two pair on and took a big lead in the hand. Jensen stood up and put his backpack on, just like he did earlier when he rivered the gutshot straight to stay alive. Luo, however, was having none of the stand-up trick and quickly stood up as well.
"Oh, you counter," laughed Jensen at Luo's attempt to balance the luck scales. Perhaps it worked out for the Chinese pro, as the dealer turned the to seal the hand, making the river meaningless.
Jensen's run for a second EPT title came to an end in 17th place, and the Danish pro will go home with €19,640. The remaining sixteen players will redraw for the final two tables.
Right after the bust out of Frederik Jensen, Tomas Macnamara and Mats Karlsson were involved in a big hand. The redraw would take place after this hand, but that didn't slow them down.
From the cutoff, Macnamara raised to 40,000 and was called by Karlsson on the button. The flop came down and Macnamara bet 55,000.
Karlsson raised it up to 125,000 and Macnamara moved all in for 340,000. Karlsson asked for a count and then quickly called.
Karlsson had and was behind against Macnamara flopped two pair with . The turn ended it all with the , which improved Macnamara's holding to a full house.
The river was the but Karlsson had no eye for that, he was already busy counting out the chips he was sending over to Macnamara.