Twitch Hero Talbot Among Leaders as 44 Remain
Day 3 of 2018 PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague €5,300 Main Event wrapped up with only 44 players remaining out of the field of 1,174, and a hero of poker Twitch finds himself squarely in the hunt for the title.
Canadian online grinder Parker Talbot sits in fourth place after bagging 1,690,000 following five 90-minute levels of Day 3 play. Talbot is known as "tonkaaaap" to his legions of followers — has nearly 100,000 — on Twitch, where he streams online tournament for typically five days per week.
On the live felt, Talbot makes himself fairly scarce in the North American scene but he has still racked up about $440,000 in cashes.
Talbot's day got off to a dream start. After already coming in with a sizable chip stack, he was dealt aces early on and won a huge pot where he got paid off for large turn and river bets to move into the chip lead with 1.2 million at 2,500/5,000/5,000.
Still, Talbot had a tough seat with nosebleed participant Markus Durnegger on his left. Nonetheless, Talbot made it work a bit later when he got Durnegger for a huge pot by inducing a massive turn bet of 190,000, which Talbot called with pocket eights on a seven-high board. Durnegger opted to give it up on the river when checked to, moving Talbot past 1.5 million with plenty of time still remaining in the day.
When the dust eventually settled at day's end, Durnegger would not be among those bagging.
Leading the way among the remaining 44 players is Konstantin Farber, although only narrowly over Evangelos Bechrakis with 2 million to 1,941,000. The latter was also at Talbot's table throughout the entire day, and he was involved in plenty of huge pots.
Most notably, Bechrakis all but eliminated Patrik Antonius on a savage cooler that saw both players river flushes in a three-bet pot. Antonius had also flopped top pair of queens, and he raised the river for value only to get called by Bechrakis' king-high flush.
Left with crumbs, Antonius didn't survive much longer. He was joined at the payout desk by Juha Helppi, Jason Wheeler, Timothy Adams and Sylvain Loosli, among others.
Among those still in the hunt are former EPT champs Anton Wigg and Andrey Pateychuk, as well as high-stakes online grinder Liviu Ignat.
Those players and the rest still remaining will hit the felt once again at noon local time on Sunday starting with Level 21 (8,000/16,000/16,000). The plan will be to play down to 16 players. Come back to PokerNews to see who those 16 will be, starting at noon.
for Roed to hit trip kings by the end the board was completed to get rid of Margereson in 46th place for €17,540.
that followed had him feeling good for a double. The 
turn gave him a boat but left the door cracked for Ruijs if the river was a king. That's exactly what happened as the 
arrived to give him kings full and draw some gasps from the players.
and Bechrakis check-called 60,000.
arrived on the river. Bechrakis bet 110,000 and Antonius raised to 360,000.
but was surprised to see 
for a higher flush.
, Bedell continued with a bet of 26,000 which Ruijs called.
, Bedell fired another bet out, now for 85,000 and Ruijs quickly called.
.
against the 
turn, Talbot bet big with 110,000 and Hadzic called. The river was a 
and Talbot tanked long enough to use an extension then bet 240,000. 
.
for Peters to turn a higher pair with the queens. Peters just needed to avoid another heart on the river and that's just what he did to double up.
