With Day 3 in the books at the European Poker Tour’s stop in Barcelona, Spain, only 110 players remain from the massive 1694 player field that started the event on Sunday. Tonight, former EPT champion Oleksii Khoroshenin is sleeping well as he sits atop that 110 player group with the chip lead.
343 players came back to the tables on Thursday, looking to first reach the money bubble of 247 players before entertaining the thought of winning the tournament. 2015 World Series of Poker bracelet winner Nick Petrangelo was at the helm of the ship as they sailed out from the Casino Barcelona with players such as Andre Akkari, Matthias de Meulder, John Juanda, Michael Eiler and Dario Sammartino all arranged behind him. Other familiar names such as Anthony Zinno, Isaac Haxton and Sofia Lovgren were in danger as they started the day with a variety of shorter stacks.
Sammartino got off to a good start, taking some chips off of Emmanuel Lopez Lasuen, but the same couldn’t be said for several of the top pros taking their shot at the first stop for the EPT’s Season 12 schedule. David Vamplew, Max Greenwood, EPT Barcelona Ladies’ Event champion Lynn Gilmartin, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Lovgren and Haxton would be dropped before the money bubble was reached. Once Anastasios Vrakas pushed his final chips in with Big Chick against Dmitry Yurasov’s Big Slick and the board failed to cooperate with him, Vrakas was the bubble boy in Barcelona and everyone was €8800 richer for the experience.
Khoroshenin started the day slowly but ramped up his attack as the Day 3 play continued. At one point with only 346K in chips, he rocketed to more than a million chips after clashing with Yurasov in a unique hand.
An A-Q-8 flop brought a bet out of Yurasov and Khoroshenin made the call to see a four come on the turn. Yurasov chambered another bullet and, after Khoroshenin called again, the duo saw a Jack complete the board. Without hesitation, Yurasov fired a third round into the pot and, just as quickly, Khoroshenin made the call. Yurasov tabled an A-4 for Aces up, but Khoroshenin had held the lead the entire time with his A-8 for a better Aces up to take the sizeable pot.
Khoroshenin would continue to batter the opposition, threatening to break the two million chip mark as one point before settling in at the end of the night with 1.708 million in chips. His nemesis Yurasov will be in the Top Ten with Khoroshenin, sitting just one seat behind him:
1. Oleksii Khoroshenin, 1.708 million
2. Dmitry Yurasov, 1.219 million
3. Rodney Ramalho, 1.138 million
4. Denys Shafikov, 1.11 million
5. Diego Casco del Riego, 1.091 million
6. Matthew Volosevich, 1.067 million
7. Mikalai Vaskaboinikau, 1.042 million
8. Markus Cerny, 1.037 million
9. Roman Voronin, 1.017 million
10. Andre Akkari, 982,000
More familiar names such as Shyam Srinvasan (975K, 11th place), Zinno (948K, 12th), Juanda (914K, 13th) and Pascal LeFrancois (644K, 23rd) are arranged in the remainder of the Top 25, while former World Champion Ryan Riess, Mikhail Petrov, Jeremy Ausmus and Patrik Antonius will be looking to do something with their dwindling stacks.
Day 4 of the EPT Barcelona Main Event will kick off at noon in Spain (7AM on the East Coast in the United States), where the drive will be to get to a reasonable number of players for Saturday’s run to the final table. For those that aren’t in the Main Event anymore, the EPT has kindly taken the time to provide for a €10,000 High Roller event to take up those players’ time. If the Main Event drew a record field and the €50K Super High roller saw nearly 100 entries, there are significant possibilities that this High Roller event will be larger than some major tournaments from other circuits. It promises for an exciting weekend of poker in Barcelona as the EPT surges back to life for a new season.
