Jonathan Duhamel has just been eliminated by the seemingly unstoppable Jackson Genovesi.
Duhamel informed us that he had six-bet shoved with 
and ran into 
. No ten on the board and Duhamel was eliminated.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
625,000 | 140,000 |
|
Busted |
Phil Hellmuth has been eliminated and will not be adding a WPT title to his 12-WSOP bracelets after being eliminated at the hands of Bastien Lebel.
Lebel opened to 4,000 in early position, Hellmuth initially called in mid-position before Zeljko Krizan moved his short stack across the line on the button. Lebel then moved all-in prompting Hellmuth to straighten up out of his chair. The bet was just over 100,000 and was slightly more than Hellmuth had in front of him. Eventually, Hellmuth decided to call
Lebel: 
Hellmuth: 
Krizan: 
The first three cards out of the deck are 
and they are soon followed by the 
.
"It doesn't look like it is going to come," says Hellmuth.
The river is the 
and Hellmuth is visibly upset.
"This kid slides it all-in with just a pair of sevens, how sick? I trapped the kid as well," says Hellmuth.
"Two sevens? What are you playing at?" Says Tony G
"He plays every hand. He doesn't know what he is doing, Tony," says Hellmuth.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
Busted |
Ask anyone who is around the major European poker tours about how badly Arnaud Mattern runs in tournaments and they will all agree he gets his money in good time and time again but gets sucked out on continually. It has just happened again
Mattern four-bet shoved for 50,000 with pocket aces and was called by the jacks of his fellow Frenchman Julian Biage. Mattern was a huge 82% favorite but that all changed as a jack landed on the flop to gift Biage a set, which held, to send Mattern to the rail disappointed once again.
Chin up Arnaud!
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
Busted |
Francesco Favia is one of the chip leaders here in Malta after eliminating two players in a single hand.
The bright-orange top wearing Italian got his chips into the middle with 
versus the 
of Casper Toft and the 
of Latz Hendrik. His queens held and Favia flew towards the top of the counts.
He has just added some more chips after a clash with Ilan Boujenah. The pair checked the turn of a board reading 
but Boujenah bet the 
river to the tune of 9,000. Favia called, showed the and won another pot.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
230,000 | 148,900 |
Ilan Boujenah is so angry we have just seen him headbutt the wall, and the man responsible for the emergence of lava is Jack Salter.
The pair got embroiled in a pot with Ilan Boujenah three-betting with pocket jacks, Salter four-betting with pocket kings, Boujenah five bet jamming and Salter calling. The outrage is because Salter stacked his chips with his blue denominations hidden behind his pink, red and yellow chips. With each blue chip worth 5,000, this means that around 100,000 was hidden from view when Boujenah went for the jugular.
The Tournament Director was called and Salter was given a verbal warning. Salter apologised, but that was no comfort for Boujenah who has had to pass the chip lead to Salter. But Boujenah is made of strong stuff and in the time it has taken for us to write this article, he his back up to 100,000!
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
260,000 | 237,800 |
|
100,000 | -95,000 |
Sampo Ryynanen is our new chip leader after taking almost all of Alfonso Amendola's stack and all of Timothy Reilly's.
He claimed Reilly's chips for his own whilst holding 
t Reilly's 
on a 
fop that had two diamonds on it, then almost scalped Amendola in a huge coinflip 
versus 
.
Amendola lost the rest of his stack with against Ryynanen's 
when the board ran out 
.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
190,000 | 136,100 |
Those of you who are keeping an eye on the chip counts will have no doubt noticed he has flown up the standings after starting the day as a short stack.
He told us he has been all in twice and both times had 100% equity. The first he held 
on a 
flop and was all in against then he got his bigger stack in the middle with vs Giovanni Rizzo's on a board.
Now that Mattern has chips at his disposal he has more room to actually play poker and he is certainly a threat again here in Malta.
Vanessa Selbst has been eliminated at the hands of Enver Abduraimov. We caught the very end of the action where Selbst was all in and at risk with (having made a pair of tens on a jack-high board) and Abduraimov holding pocket aces.
Selbst couldn't catch one of her outs and has thus been eliminated from WPT Malta.
