When the penultimate day of the Eureka3 Prague Main Event got underway at noon local time there were 43 bums on seats. Amongst those posteriors were EPT Main Event champions, Team PokerStars Pros, high stakes sharks and PokerStars qualifiers.
It’s one of the latter who leads the final eight as after almost seven levels of play Ami Barer, a PokerStars qualifier from Canada, emerged as the chip leader. He bagged up 7,280,000 to head the elite eight.
This is how the final table lines up:
Seat one: Jaroslav Peter, Czech Republic, 3,995,000
Seat two: Marcin Horecki, Poland, Team PokerStars Pro, 1,340,000
Seat three: Johannes Tiefenbrunner, Germany, 935,000
Seat four: Dmitri Holdeew, Germany, PokerStars player, 4,720,000
Seat five: Ami Barer, Canada, PokerStars qualifier, 7,280,000
Seat six: Milan Simko, Czech Republic, PokerStars qualifier, 695,000
Seat seven: Stephen Chidwick, UK, PokerStars player, 4,955,000
Seat eight: Mark Dalimore, UK, PokerStars player, 2,170,000
Whilst the 22-year-old from Vancouver will ‘only’ have to finish fifth to better his biggest live cash of €45,000 he’s won far more than that online. He has won over $5,500,000 million dollars under the nickname “UhhMee”. Amongst his accolades are two FTOPS titles on Full Tilt Poker and he was close to winning a SCOOP watch as he fell short in the heads-up of event #03-H back in 2011.
It’s another online shark, or at least a player who built his reputation as one, who’s Barer’s closest challenger. Start of day chip leader Stephen ‘Stevie444’ Chidwick was due to attend the WCOOP bracelet ceremony tonight to receive a WCOOP bracelet for his win in the $320 WCOOP Pot Limit Badugi event in September. But he was busy making the final table of this event. He’ll start with 4,955,000 in part thanks to winning a 3M chip pot and all but eliminating Chris Moorman in 12th place.
Just a few big blinds back you’ll find Dmitri Holdeew, he was one of the short stacks for the opening levels but rallied and then got very lucky to eliminate Idan Raviv in 13th place, cracking the Israeli’s pocket aces with Aâ™ K♥ when he flopped a king and rivered another.
The best hopes of a home win rest with Jaroslav Peter – who we’ve called Peter Jaroslav for the majority of this event – he’s the only other player with an above average stack and he bought the days proceedings to an end when he eliminated Sergey Baranov in ninth place. Like Holdeew he showed great mental fortitude to recover from being a short stack.
His day turned when he made an excellent river call against Lasell King to win a 2M chip pot. Peter flopped a broadway straight but got check-raised when the flush draw completed on the turn. He called one barrel and then called all-in, he was right.
The second Brit at the final table is actually a local, as Mark Dalimore lives in the Czech Republic and reckons he’ll have a bigger rail in Ireland than in the UK tomorrow. His day was remarkable for the fact that it was unremarkable. He started second in chips and then almost coasted along in the middle of the pack all day whilst others fell around him. He’ll not care one iota though and he’ll start in fifth place tomorrow..
The same can not be said of Marcin Horecki, the Team PokerStars Pro was at the top of the chip counts for much of the latter part of the day but lost a number of sizable pots near the end of the day to finish on 1,340,000. That being said he should, quite frankly, be out! He got roughly 60% of his stack in with K♦ Q♦ against pocket aces and ace-king. He had just a 14% chance of winning the hand but a king on the flop and a queen on the turn did just that.
He also took care of the dangerous Martin Mulsow in 16th place when his pocket fours held against Mulsow’s J♣ 10♣ . The Pole briefly led the tournament before slipping back
Much like Horecki, I imagine Johannes Tiefenbrunner is wondering how he finds himself in short stack territory. He was chip leader with 18 left but like Horecki he fell away and has work to do tomorrow.
The second Czech at the final table will come in as the short stack and was another player to briefly challenge for the chip lead. He had a set cracked by Chris Moorman’s combo flush and straight draw but recovered to make it through.
Let’s spare a thought for the 35 players who’s hopes were ended on Day 3 of this event and many a big name was amongst them: David Lappin (42nd, €3,850), Team PokerStars Pro Mattias De Meulder (28th, €5,250), Kevin MacPhee (27th, €6,100), Martin Mulsow (16th, €9,900) and Chris Moorman (12th, €12,550) were some of the notables to fall. You can see all the in the money finishers here.
We’ll be back at 12.30pm as we play from eight to a winner, this is what’s up for grabs:
1. €226,400
2. €131,400
3. €92,500
4. €68,800
5. €53,500
6. €39,800
7. €30,500
8. €21,700
You can catch up on all today’s action here and here But for now it’s goodnight from Prague.
All photos are copyright of Tomas Stacha
Back to Top