Jakub Mroczek Leads EPT London With Five Former Champs Still In Contention
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Jakub Mroczek from Poland will lead the field going into the penultimate day of EPT London bagging up 1,790,000 after five 90-minutes levels of play.
Just two other players finished with over one million chips and they are Joao Vieira from Portugal with 1,151,000 and right behind him is Artur Koren from Germany in third place with 1,126,000
The first order of business for Day 3 was the money bubble. Of the original 675 entrants, there were 127 who sat down and with 95 paid, short-stacked players had to pick their spots carefully while at the same time avoiding getting blinded out.
As the bubble approached the pace slowed down considerably and understandably so, it usually does. At one table, Mateusz Zbikowski took it to the extreme, taking nearly five minutes to make a decision every hand. That decision was always a fold as he nursed his three big blind stack and tried desperately to creep in to the money. Sam Trickett and Niall Farrell were at his table and mercilessly teased him, but no-one called the clock. Zbikowski did eventually cash for the minimum £7,750.
There have been a number of dramatic bubbles at the EPT over the years but it was all fairly straightforward today. In the second level, and before play had actually gone to hand-for-hand, Marco Caza opened the action with 
and then called a shove from Ignat Liviu who had 
. The cards ran out 
with the river delivering the fatal blow, busting Liviu, and giving the survivors a guaranteed pay-day.
The stampede for the pay-out desk after the bubble soon included Sam Trickett, Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Eugene Katchalov, Sofia Lovgren, Paul Newey, Martin Staszko and Niall Farrell.
Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden had a predictably swingy day but he fell just before the close of play. Lodden had not long before doubled up with aces, but he contrived to give some back and then got it in good with 
versus the 
of big stack Mroczek. A board of 
finished Lodden off.
Remarkably, there are five former EPT champions still in contention with Team PokerStars Pros Jake Cody (794,000), Liv Boeree (156,000), PokerStars Team Online Mickey Petersen (143,000), along with Kevin MacPhee (598,000), and, best placed Benny Spindler (911,000) looking to repeat Victoria Coren Mitchell’s feat.
PokerStars Sportstar Fatima Moreira de Melo started the day as one of the shortest stacks remaining but with a mixture of tenacity and good fortune she ended the day on 279,000. Getting it all in with 
against Alexander Trevallion’s 
certainly helped, and in the last level she would play a big pot with Boeree when de Melo had 
and shoved the river on a 
board, Boeree folding what she said were jacks.
Just 36 remain and the plan for tomorrow is to play down to 16 players with cards in the air at noon. Join us once again as the PokerNews Live Reporting Team brings you all the bust outs and double ups from the Grand Connaught Rooms as the EPT Main Event, sponsored by PokerStars.com in partnership with The Hippodrome Casino London, marches onwards to a conclusion where a champion will be crowned and take home a first place prize of £499,700.