Over on the feature table was just saw another big all in, this time Oleksii Kovalchuk and Freddy Deeb went at it. Kovalchuk was all in for 379,000 and Deeb had him covered by a huge margin.
Goran Mandic raised to 23,000 and Andreas Eiler, to his immediate left, decided to three-bet to 52,000. The action folded back to Mandic who decided to four-bet to 102,000. Eiler went into the tank for a while after which he shoved all in for right around 630,000 chips. The German did not look happy as Mandic snap-called his huge shove.
Mandic:
Eiler:
The board ran out and Eiler was knocked out in stunning fashion. Mandic's image worked to his advantage as he's now the tournament chip leader.
Day 4 of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final is set to kick off in 45 minutes or so, and leading the remaining 34 players is Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden. Lodden was the only player to bag more than a million chips at the end of Day 3, and will begin today with 1.232 million. The Norwegian has ninth, 13th, 13th, 17th, and 32nd-place finishes in EPT Main Events, but he has never reached a final table.
Team PokerStars Pros Jake Cody and Jason Mercier, Team PokerStars Online member Mickey Petersen, and Noah Boeken have all made EPT Main Event final tables. In fact, they're all former champions. Cody won EPT6 Deauville, Mercier EPT4 Sanremo, Petersen EPT8 Copenhagen, and Boeken EPT1 Copenhagen. No player has ever repeated as champion in the nine seasons of the European Poker Tour.
Also atop the chip counts are Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, and Noah Schwartz. Negreanu is on a hot streak, coming off of his win in the first ever World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific Main Event, while Juanda and Schwartz recorded major six-figure scores at the end of 2012. Juanda finished runner-up in the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe €50,000 Majestic High Roller, while Schwartz won the World Poker Tour bestbet Fall Series Main Event.
Of the remaining 34 players, seven represent the red spade. Ville Wahlbeck and Victor Ramdin will join their aforementioned peers on the felt today, making the field 20.5% Team PokerStars.
The cards will be in the air at 15:00 CET, so be sure to stay tuned for all of your up-to-the-minute updates here on PokerNews.