Thursday, 28th March 2024 18:04
Home / Uncategorized / EPT12 Malta: Farrell leads final ten in the Main Event

The plan today in the Main Event is to play down to the final six players or five full levels, whichever comes first. There are currently 10 players remaining, when the next player is eliminated they’ll combine to one table of nine and the official final table will be reached when eight players are left.

Mid-day update

If Niall Farrell wins this tournament then he’ll probably look back on the hand that eliminated Gianluca Escobar in 11th place as the one that propelled him to victory. It happened live at the feature table (if you go here and rewind to 4hrs 38 minutes in you can watch it). The Scotsman has a bit of history with ‘blowing up’ deep in EPT events and it looked like it history was going to repeat itself.

EPT12_malta_main_event_day5_niall_farrell.jpg

Being lucky and good is a potent combination

In the hand in question Farrell opened to 70,000 from the cut off, Escobar three-bet to 175,000 on the button only for Sam Greenwood to four-bet to 475,000 total. Back on Farrell he asked Greenwood how much he had back, tanked for a couple of minutes and then moved all-in for over 1,900,000. Escobar acted far quicker, calling all-in for 1,572,000 and Greenwood folded.

Farrell: 10â™  9â™ 
Escobar: Q♠ Q♣

“I have a cracker hand,” said Farrell when the cards were revealed before adding. “I said I wouldn’t do this again on the live stream.”

Should he lose Farrell would drop to around 10 big blinds. The 6♠ 7♣ 9♥ was very good for the Scot but not as good as the 10♦ turn or 10♣ river and a visibly embarrassed Farrell rivered an unnecessary full-house to eliminate Escobar and claim the chip lead.

Full Chip counts

Below are the counts of the remaining 10 players, these are accurate as of the start of Level 26 in which the blinds are 20,000/40,000 ante 5,000. The average stack is 1,953,000 which equates to a little under 49 big blinds.

Name Country Status Chips
Niall Farrell UK PokerStars player 4,075,000
Alexander Ivarsson Sweden PokerStars player 3,365,000
Jaroslaw Sikora Poland PokerStars player 2,350,000
Sam Greenwood Canada PokerStars player 2,050,000
Alen Bilic Bosnia and Herzegovina PokerStars player 1,940,000
Nabil Cardoso Spain   1,540,000
Daniel Dvoress Canada PokerStars qualifier 1,540,000
Rainer Kempe Germany PokerStars qualifier 1,185,000
Gianluca Escobar Italy   690,000
Antonio Chemi Italy   470,000

Long time chip leader Alexander Ivarsson is still second and Jaroslaw Sikora – who started today in second place – is now third, with the talented Sam Greenwood lying in fourth place.

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Is Greenwood the best player left in?

Notable eliminations

Every elimination at this stage of the tournament is notable. Kitty Kuo’s was notable for two reasons though. Firstly she was the first player out today and secondly she was the last lady in the Main Event. She lost a flip with pocket jacks against Bjorn Geissert’s A♦ Kâ™  to bust, as the German hit an ace on the flop.

About forty minutes later Farrell warmed up for his Esocbar bust by cracking Apostolos Bechrakis’s pocket queens with A♣ 10â™  . This time he had to wait until the river though on a Kâ™  Qâ™  6♥ 2♣ J♣ board.

Next to go was Darrell Goh, it was the reverse of the Kuo exit hand as his A♦ K♦ failed to spike against Alen Bilic’s pocket jacks. He was followed almost immediately to the payout desk by Geissert, who made a big move with top pair no kicker on a queen high flop only to run into the pocket kings of Ivarsson.

Shortly afterwards Jaroslaw Sikora took care of Akim Aouine with queens against A♣ J♦ and then came that Farrell had to take us to where we are now.

Edit: Just minutes ago Antonio Chemi was eliminated in tenth place and so just nine players remain.

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Kuo was first to go today

You can watch #EPTLive coverage here, whilst everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the side event coverage can be found here and the High Roller coverage is right here.

Begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS


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