EPT Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure -- Day 3 Recap

Forty players survived day 3 at the European Poker Tour PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA). Day 3 saw the always unpredictable passing of the money bubble in the Bahamas, and, after fighting through an enormous field of 1,136 players just to get this far, no one wanted to be eliminated so close to the bubble. The 153 players that started the day timidly approached that bubble, which popped after just two hours of play, and 33 of them left empty-handed. During these early hours, Hevad “Rain” Khan made a run up the leader board when he eliminated fellow Team PokerStars member Barry Greenstein. The hand featured the classic cooler situation, with Khan holding aces to Greenstein’s kings when they got all of their chips into the middle of the table on the flop. The aces were good, and Hevad shot up to 340,000 just an hour into play. But like many players during day 3, Khan was in for an erratic ride, and he would end the day watching things from the rail after he was eliminated in 45th place.

Players climbed the leader board throughout day 3, but the 2007 Card Player Player of the Year, David “The Dragon” Pham, climbed the highest of all. He eclipsed the million-chip plateau and never looked back, finishing with 2,003,000, the most of anyone left in the tournament. Peter “Apathy” Jetten had a similar experience to Khan, he peaked at 1.025 million after the conclusion of level 14, which made him the chip leader at the time. But Jetten was in for a shocking conclusion to his PCA experience. He busted out of the event late on day 3 in 42nd place. Another player who was all over the place during day 3 was Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. He began the day second in chips with 435,000, and then watched that grow to 595,000. That was before he lost a huge hand near the end of the day. On that fateful hand, Grospellier had his opponent, Jose Cuenca, covered and beat preflop. Grospellier held A-Q against Cuenca’s J-10, but low and behold, the turn brought a 10 that doubled up Cuenca and left Grospellier fuming with only 175,000. Grospellier rallied late in the day and doubled up to finish things with 729,000.

Many players made their exit during the action, 113 of them, in fact, and among the most recognized players in the group of eliminations were Greenstein (busted before money bubble), Lee Markholt (110th place), Ted Lawson (64th place), Tony Cousineau (114th place), Jon Friedberg (43rd place), Khan, and Jetten. This leaves things wide open for a number of familiar faces left in the hunt for the 2008 PCA crown. Among those players are Pham, Grospellier, Eric “Rizen” Lynch (660,000), and Victor Ramdin (206,000). The 40 remaining players will play down to a final table of eight tomorrow. They will then return on Thursday, Jan. 10 to decide who will become the first major poker tournament winner of 2008.

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