Russell Bags Event #26: $2,620 NLHE Marathon Chip Lead Followed by Hong and Guilbert
After another six levels of 100 minutes each, Day 3 of Event #26: $2,620 No-Limit Hold’Em Marathon has come to an end. At the beginning of the day, 188 players returned to the tables with two goals in mind. First, to make it into the money. Second, to make it through to Day 4. Fifty-two players succeeded in both goals at the end of the day. Matt Russell takes the overnight chip lead with 1,260,000 in chips.
Russell collected some of those chips when he bluffed Ryan Leng and David Pham off their hands with ace-king on the jack-eight-five-ten-jack board. Leng’s pocket queens would have beaten them. But Russell’s bluff made it through. He is followed in the chip counts by Peter Hong with 1,205,000 and France’s Johan Guilbert with 1,204,000 in chips. Some of those chips Guilbert bagged belonged to Ben Palmer. Palmer had four-bet shoved with ace-king and Guilbert called with the pocket nines. Palmer paired the ace on the turn but ran into the rivered flush in the last level of the night.
Also bagging over a million in chips include Vladimir Alexandrov, Tuan Phan, Jason Wandling, and Sergio Fernandez. Bracelet winners Preston Lee, Mohsin Charania, Daniel Park, and Leng are also still in with a shot to win their second bracelet. Other players to keep an eye on include Erkut Yilmaz, Day 2 chip leader David Coleman, Anatoly Filatov, Francis Anderson, Joseph Cheong, and Corentin Ropert.
Taylor Hart was the one to burst the bubble when he called Joel Isla’s shove with ace-queen. Isla held ace-ten and got no help of the board as he left the tournament room while the rest of the field celebrated the fact that they were all in the money now. Soon after, the “seat open” announcements of the dealers could be heard throughout the rest of the day. Players like Adrian Mateos, Demothenes Kiriopoulos, Andre Akkari, Joao Vieira, Maxim Lykov, Maria Lampropulos, Christian Pham, Dillon Ott, Christopher Frank, Matt Berkey, Bertrand Grospellier, Cliff Josephy, Denis Timofeev, Marcel Vonk, Sam Cohen and Pham all cashed but didn’t bag at the end of the day.
When the 52 remaining players return at 1 p.m. local time on Thursday, June 13, they will start with Level 19 which features a small blind of 5,000, big blind of 10,000, and the big blind ante of 10,000. Six levels of 100 minutes each are scheduled with a 15-minute break after every level and a 60-minute dinner break after the sixth level.
The race is not even close to being run yet as there are three more days of play planned before the champion will be crowned. The PokerNews live reporting team will be there until the finish line so make sure to keep following the updates right here!
and Pham checked to Fernandez who bet 60,000. Pham check-raised all in for around 170,000 and Fernandez instantly called. Pham turned over 
but was drawing nearly dead against the 
of Fernandez.
on the turn solidified Pham's fate and the 
on the river was just a formality. Pham sent his chips to his neighbor Fernandez who is now closing in on the one million chip mark.
. The turn brought the 
and Chris Grigorian checked from the small blind. Denys Shafikov bet 60,000 in the big blind and Grigorian snap-called.
paired the board on the river and Grigorian checked again. Shafikov tossed in a bet of 45,000 and Grigorian instantly announced all in for 285,000. Shafikov called just as fast and Grigorian tabled 
before his cards hit the muck.
for Cohen to hit a higher set but the 
on the river pulled in the gasps as Koppel now hit quads to eliminate Cohen from the tournament.
, Lee shoved with the bigger stack and Mustafov snap-called. Lee tabled 
for the same two pair but with the lower kicker for his run in the Marathon to end for this year.
for Guilbert to hold with the rockets to double up. Lavrovsky got up from his chair but when the stacks were counted out, Guilbert had 295,000 in total, leaving him behind with around four big blinds.
for a flush to score a double up.
for Leng to flop top pair to eliminate Wongwichit.
