After two tournament days and 19 levels of one hour each, the 411-entry strong field of the €1,000 + €100 Main Event of the 2015 Unibet Open has been whittled down to its last 16 hopefuls.
All of them have at least €4,220 locked up for their efforts and play will resume in half an hour from now on at 13:00 local time at the Casino Barriere in Cannes.
The blinds will resume in level 20 at 12,000-24,000 with a running ante of 3,000 and quite a few of the short stacks will be hoping for a pay jump that comes with the next elimination.
Among the half a dozen with less than 20 big blinds that try and spin up their stack are Day 1a chip leader Julien Sitbon (353,000) and Vyacheslav Igin (182,000). In the middle of the pack are David Hefner (940,000), Jussi Heikela (889,000) and Joachim Kleiven (634,000) while four participants bagged up more than one million in chips overnight.
Fred Weiss (2,113,000) and Karl Stark (1,617,000) are leading the field after both running very hot during the last two levels of last night on the feature table. They are followed by Florian Ferroni (1,081,000) and Loic Francois (1,046,000). The odds of a home victory on the French Riviera for the second time in its third edition are quite good, as half the remaining participants are indeed French. It is already confirmed that a new Unibet Open champion will be crowned, as all three remaining champions in Mateusz Moolhuizen, Quentin Lecomte and Peter Harkes were eliminated yesterday.
Follow the PokerNews live reporting to find out who takes home the stunning trophy and first place-payout of €80,000. There will also be a live stream of the final table and the text updates will take place according to the delayed stream from then on.
Zsombor Gall opened to 50,000 from under the gun and David Abbas three-bet to 132,000 out of the small blind before the action reached Jussi Heikela in the big blind. The Finn announced all in and enforced two folds.
One hand later, Philip Fjaestad moved all in for what looked like 185,000 and Heikela announced the call in the small blind.
Heikela:
Fjaestad:
The board ran out and the Swede headed to the payout desk in order to collect his €4,220.
It was a rather bad day at the office for Michael Lancri and he just open-shoved for what looked like 400,000 from the button. Karl Stark made the call out of the small blind and they tabled the cards:
Stark:
Lancri:
The Swede improved on the flop and hit two pair on the turn. Lancri was not drawing dead yet as any ace, six or ten would have secured the double up. Instead, it was the that appeared on the river and Stark let out a "sorry about that" with a very typical Scandinavian accent.
The action folded to Vyacheslav Igin in the small blind and his shove went through uncalled. The Russian was at risk once and a couple of times without being called.
Soon after the other table short stack took a shot at the double or nothing and it was Niels Vesterlund at risk. Chip leader Karl Stark made the call out of the big blind.
Stark:
Vesterlund:
The board ran out and Vesterlund was sent to the rail in 14th place.
It only took one further hand. Vyacheslav Igin shoved for 225,000 from early position and Karl Stark announced the call in the small blind. David Abbas tanked in the big blind but released his cards eventually.
Stark:
Igin:
"He cannot lose a hand," Julien Sitbon joked from the secondary table and the Frenchman would turn out to be correct for this hand. The board ran out and Igin also headed to the payout desk in order to collect €4,930 for his efforts.
Jussi Heikela opened the action with a raise to 85,000 from the cutoff over on the feature table and Julien Bolimowski announced all in out of the big blind for 541,000 in total. Heikela made the call and Bolimowski was in desperate shape:
Heikela:
Bolimiwski:
The Frenchman was drawing dead after the turn and the meaningless river of no help anymore. Heikela has been running fairly good thus far on the final day and is the second biggest stack right now.
Karl Stark has indeed lost one all in today against a short stack for seven big blinds. Apart from that it seems difficult to remember any beat for the Swede and he proceeded to knock out yet another opponent.
Stark opened to 75,000 from under the gun and Zsombor Gall then shoved the big blind for what looked like 350,000. Stark snap-called and the reason was kind of obvious:
Stark:
Gall:
The Hungarian actually flopped an open-ended straight draw on the flop, but both the turn and river bricked.
Loic Francois opened the action with a raise and chip leader Karl Stark three-bet to 245,000 from one seat over. Short stack David Abbas announced all in for 425,000 out of the small blind and Francois re-squeezed to 745,000. Now Stark moved all in to put both his opponents at risk.
Francois was stunned and tanked for a few minutes before finally mucking the , smashing the cards to the middle of the table.
Abbas:
Stark:
The board ran out and Abbas was sent to the rail in 10th place for €6,050. There is now a short break with the redraw for the final table and setting up the live stream. Furthermore, all finalists will be interviewed so the next update will take a while still.
The clock shows 03:58 minutes remaining for the current level.
The action folded to start-of-the-day chip leader Fred Weiss in the small blind and he moved all in. Julien Sitbon asked for a count and eventually made the call to put Weiss at risk for his last 635,000 in the seventh hand of the official final table.
Sitbon:
Weiss:
The flop confirmed the lead for Sitbon. Weiss was drawing dead after the turn and the river only a formality.
Jussi Heikela opened to 135,000 from the button with and Pierre Antona moved all in from the small blind with the . Joachim Kleiven called all in for slightly less chips than the Frenchman with and Heikela mucked.
The board ran out and Antona was left with very few chips. Two hands later he got the remaining 105,000 in with . He got called by chip leader Karl Stark with the and the Swede got there on a board of .
and the Swede headed to the payout desk in order to collect his €4,220.
flop and hit two pair on the 
turn. Lancri was not drawing dead yet as any ace, six or ten would have secured the double up. Instead, it was the 
that appeared on the river and Stark let out a "sorry about that" with a very typical Scandinavian accent.
and Vesterlund was sent to the rail in 14th place.
and Igin also headed to the payout desk in order to collect €4,930 for his efforts.
turn and the meaningless 
turn and 
river bricked.
and Abbas was sent to the rail in 10th place for €6,050. There is now a short break with the redraw for the final table and setting up the live stream. Furthermore, all finalists will be interviewed so the next update will take a while still.
and Heikela mucked.
