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WPT -- Bellagio Festa Al Lago Main Event Day 3

Corwin Cole Leads Remaining Field of 37

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Prahlad FriedmanA slow grind.

That is perhaps the best way to describe the play during day 3 of the WPT Bellagio Festa Al Lago main event. After two days of play saw 177 exit, 98 returned for the snail’s pace crawl to the money, which had been relegated to the final 27.

With a $23,855 bubble in front of them, play moved cautiously as the fat (short stacks) was trimmed, and a few notables jumped out to a big lead.

Jason Somerville came into the day with the chip lead and started off on the right foot getting his stack as high as 900,000 before a rough last level saw him finish the day in sixth place, with 669,000.

There was no shortage of players looking to pick up the slack, however, and both Corwin Cole and Jonas Entin battled for the lead before ultimately settling for the top two spots overnight.

Dee LuongHusband and wife team Prahlad Friedman (pictured above right) and Dee Luong (pictured left) were hoping to both make a run at the money together, but Luong managed much more than that, busting Adam Geyer in a big race situation to put her among the chip leaders. She finished in fourth place with 771,500, but her hubby and Legends of Poker champion Friedman is still going strong with 188,000 of his own.

He and others will have a lot of ground to make up, however, with the average stack at 445,945. Play ended after five levels with 37 remaining, putting the players just 10 spots from the ever-important payday.

Interestingly, three players who bought in on day 2 are still in the running for the title. They include Freddy Deeb, Chris Ferguson, and Andy Bloch.

The action continues on Saturday at noon as the field passes the money bubble and settles with the final table of 10.

Here’s a look at the chip counts:

Rank First Name Last Name Chip Count
1 CORWIN COLE 996,000
2 JONAS ENTIN 985,500
3 JASON LAVALLEE 833,500
4 DEE LUONG 771,500
5 MARK SEIF 759,000
6 JASON SOMERVILLE 669,000
7 DUTCH BOYD 616,500
8 FREDDY DEEB 588,000
9 TOMMY VEDES 579,000
10 CHRIS FERGUSON 535,000
11 JASON BURT 516,000
12 SHAWN CUNIX 515,500
13 LAWRENCE BERG 510,000
14 MATTHEW STOUT 498,500
15 BRANDON CANTU 414,000
16 KIDO PHAM 401,000
17 DAN SHAK 398,000
18 CLIFF JOSEPHY 385,000
19 STEPHEN GIUFRE 382,500
20 TERENCE RYAN 371,000
21 MATTHEW GLANTZ 361,500
22 STEVEN BRECHER 360,000
23 MICHAEL CHIAPPETTA 360,000
24 CRAIG CRIVELLO 341,500
25 ROBERT TEPPER 322,000
26 RICHARD SCIUTO 320,500
27 ANDY BLOCH 320,500
28 CHAD BATISTA 315,000
29 CHAU GIANG 293,500
30 LEE MARKHOLT 273,500
31 CHRIS BJORIN 271,500
32 VIVEK RAJKUMAR 253,000
33 JEFFREY BLENKARN 225,000
34 AARON JONES 214,500
35 PRAHLAD FRIEDMAN 188,000
36 MARKUS GONSALVES 187,500
37 NESTOR MARTINEZ 186,500