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European Poker Tour -- Prague Day 3

The Field is Down to 24 -- Luca Pagano and Anthony Lellouche Remain in the Hunt

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Luca PaganoDay 3 of the PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague €5,000 no-limit hold’em main event welcomed back 95 players, and the first order of business was to burst the money bubble. The top 80 players would get paid, and the unfortunate bubble brigade that fell during early play included Team PokerStars pros Sandra Naujoks and Jude Ainsworth. After the bubble burst, every player remaining would walk away with at least €8,000, and the new order for the field was to shrink down to 24.

The third day of the tournament was a tough one for the professionals. Just one Team PokerStars pro remains. Luca Pagano (pictured left) guaranteed his 13th EPT cash by advancing to day 4, which is the most for any player in the history of the tour. Pagano ended the day with 648,000 in chips, and he is followed closely by one of the other professionals who remain. Anthony Lellouche advanced with 625,000, booking his eight EPT cash. The only professional to reside in the top 10 is Swedish player Stefan Mattsson, who holds 1 million. The chip leader heading into day 4 is Eyal Avitan with 1.9 million. Tomorrow the field will play down from 24 to the final table of eight.

Check back at CardPlayer.com tomorrow for another summary of the action, and be sure to follow along with the action from the PokerStars blog feed daily during the event. Day 4 will also mark the beginning of live streaming video from the event on the EPT Live video feed. Here is a look at the tournament statistics for day 3:

Notable Day 3 Cashes:

63: Arnaud Mattern — €9,100
46: Florian Langmann — €10,300
36: Voitto Rintala — €11,300
30: Pieter de Korver — €12,800
29: Marcin Horecki — €12,800

Remaining Payout Structure:

1 – €682,000
2 – €454,000
3 – €255,000
4 – €171,000
5 – €135,000
6 – €100,000
7 – €71,000
8 – €55,500
9-10 – €42,600
11-12 – €31,400
13-14 – €24,500
15-16 – €20,000
17-24 – €15,500

Day 3 Top 10 Chip Counts:

Eyal Avitan (Israel) — 1,900,000
Juha Lauttamus (Finland) — 1,311,000
Jan Skampa (Czech Republic) — 1,288,000
Stefan Mattsson (Sweden) — 1,000,000
Gustav Ekerot (Sweden) — 928,000
Anthony Roux (France) — 903,000
Bastian Trachte (Germany) — 893,000
Jerome Zerbib (France) — 860,000
Evgeniy Zaytsev (Russian) — 804,000
Laurence Ryan (Ireland) — 740,000

Hand of the Day:

Big Money

Konstantin Maslak raised to 18,000 preflop, and Andreas Eiler reraised to 63,000. The small blind called all in for 49,000, and then Maslak reraised all in for 600,000. Eiler called all in for 424,000, and the three players turned over their cards:

Maslak: AHeart Suit AClub Suit
Eiler: QDiamond Suit QSpade Suit
Small Blind: ASpade Suit 10Diamond Suit

Board: QHeart Suit 8Spade Suit 3Spade Suit JSpade Suit 2Club Suit

Elier hit a third queen to win the huge hand and more than double up to close to a million in chips.