Adams Takes Chip Lead into Day 4; Three Former EPT Champions Left with Chouity, Castaignon, and Michaelis
Day 3 of the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour €5,300 Main Event has come to an end with Timothy Adams in the lead with 2,190,000 after six levels of play. Out of 922 entries, 107 returned to the felt at noon and in the end, 30 players managed to find a bag to tag for Day 4 tomorrow here in the Monte Carlo Bay Resort & Hotel.
Adams won a tournament here in Monte Carlo earlier this week, collecting €548,030 for his first-place finish in the €25,000 Single-Day High Roller, and is looking to add a second trophy to bring back to Canada. Trailing Adams in the chip counts is 2010 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final champion, Nicolas Chouity who bagged 2,155,000 after spending the latter part of the day on the feature table with Day 2 chip leader, Wiktor Malinowski. Malinowski will return on Day 3 with 715,000 — despite being less than what he started with, after being down to almost 100,000 during the day he’ll be happy to have recovered somewhat.
Melika Razavi finished Day 3 with 2,050,000 in her bag, the only other player to have collected more than 2 million over the day. PokerNews' Valerie Cross caught up with the Iranian beauty queen during the day to ask about her tournament. Evy Kvilhaug and Alisa Sibgatova are two other women who have made it through, but with both stacks under average they’ve got some work to do on Day 4. Twenty different nationalities are represented among the 30 remaining players, promising a multi-cultural affair in the final stages.
The dubious honor of the first to be eliminated today was the PokerStars Ambassador, Ramon Colillas who started on the feature table. Colillas found pocket jacks in the small blind and four-bet shoved his last 17 big blinds in after Patrik Antonius had raised and Mikalai Vaskaboinikau had three-bet. Vaskaboinikau was the only one to make the call with pocket aces and stayed ahead throughout the board.
The runner-up to Colillas in the PokerStars Players Championship, Julien Martini was eliminated by Nicolas Chouity after starting the day as one of the chip leaders. In a three-bet pot, the flop came nine-four-deuce and Martini called a bet of Chouity, as well as a shove when the six came on the turn. Martini held nine-seven for a pair of nines while Chouity was ahead with pocket jacks and rivered an extra jack for good measure to send Martini out.
Fatima Moreira De Melo was the last PokerStars Ambassador left in the field when she shoved from the big blind after Aladin Reskallah had limped in from the small blind. De Melo’s king-nine failed to beat the ace-king of Reskallah, and the former Dutch Gold Olympic medal winner was sent to the rail in 44th place.
With four former EPT Champions in the field, the only one to be sent packing today was Antonius. Antonius won the EPT Baden Classic in 2005 and was eliminated in the last level of the night when he ran his last 356,000 into the pocket queens of Luis Medina with ace-ten. No help of the board as the Finn was sent to the rail in 35th place. Remi Castaignon and Paul Michaelis are both still in, as is Chouity. Castaignon won EPT Deauville in 2013 and Michaelis is the most recent EPT champion when he won it in Prague in December. Castaignon bagged 680,000 and Michaelis will be returning with 1,480,000. Michaelis could be the second player ever to win two EPTs but could also be the first-ever to win it back to back.
Make sure to return tomorrow, Friday, May 3, at noon as the PokerNews live reporting team will be here to bring you all the updates as the tournament plays down to the final six players.
Day 4 Seat Draw
| Table | Seat | Players | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Rustam Hajiyev | Azerbaijan | 1,045,000 | 52 |
| 1 | 2 | Wei Huang | China | 130,000 | 7 |
| 1 | 4 | Jorden Verbraeken | Belgium | 1,100,000 | 55 |
| 1 | 5 | James Romero | USA | 1,310,000 | 66 |
| 1 | 6 | Fady Kamar | Lebanon | 725,000 | 36 |
| 1 | 7 | Melika Razavi | Iran | 2,050,000 | 103 |
| 1 | 8 | Karoly Odor | Hungary | 270,000 | 14 |
| 2 | 1 | Mikalai Vaskaboinikau | Belarus | 695,000 | 35 |
| 2 | 2 | Evy Kvilhaug | Norway | 485,000 | 24 |
| 2 | 3 | Alisa Sibgatova | Russia | 450,000 | 23 |
| 2 | 4 | Ambrose Travers | UK | 520,000 | 26 |
| 2 | 5 | Bruno Volkmann | Brazil | 1,210,000 | 61 |
| 2 | 6 | Nicolas Chouity | Lebanon | 2,155,000 | 108 |
| 2 | 7 | Vlado Banicevic | Montenegro | 350,000 | 18 |
| 2 | 8 | Sam Greenwood | Canada | 550,000 | 28 |
| 3 | 1 | Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | 625,000 | 31 |
| 3 | 2 | Remi Castaignon | France | 680,000 | 34 |
| 3 | 3 | Aladin Reskallah | France | 1,600,000 | 80 |
| 3 | 4 | Nicola Grieco | Italy | 975,000 | 49 |
| 3 | 6 | Timothy Adams | Canada | 2,190,000 | 110 |
| 3 | 7 | Ryan Riess | USA | 230,000 | 12 |
| 3 | 8 | Luis Medina | Portugal | 890,000 | 45 |
| 4 | 1 | Manig Loeser | Germany | 1,635,000 | 82 |
| 4 | 2 | Conor Beresford | UK | 1,010,000 | 51 |
| 4 | 3 | Massimo Mosele | Italy | 320,000 | 16 |
| 4 | 4 | Govert Metaal | Netherlands | 790,000 | 40 |
| 4 | 5 | Jack Maskill | UK | 300,000 | 15 |
| 4 | 6 | Wiktor Malinowski | Poland | 715,000 | 36 |
| 4 | 7 | Paul Michaelis | Germany | 1,480,000 | 74 |
| 4 | 8 | Viktor Katzenberger | Hungary | 1,255,000 | 63 |