The 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event is working its way closer to its champion with a host of popular professionals all in pursuit of Patrick Kelly, who bagged up a neat 1.75 million chips by the end of action on Thursday.
166 players returned for action yesterday at the Atlantis Resort at Paradise Island in the Bahamas with the money bubble the first task to take care of for the day. With 144 players walking off with the minimum $15,000 payday, this meant that 22 players who returned on Day Three would exit the battlefield with nothing to show for their efforts. The players wasted little time getting to work, with Yann Dion eliminating Milan Cicka and Mikal Blomlie dumping Jack Schanbacher from the tournament, while Olivier Busquet would get a key double up that would help him survive through the day.
Joe Serock, sitting prominently in the Top Five at the start of the day behind Nicolas Godoy, Darren Elias, Michael Mizrachi and Jose Quintas, improved his position by taking a huge pot against Jeremy Kottler. On a 10-7-5-2-10 board, Serock was able to get Kottler to call off a 135K bet and, after turning over his pocket Kings, picked up the healthy pot to move to 685K in chips. He would use these chips to remain in the Top Ten as the day wore on.
After Michael Lipman eliminated Shawn Buchanan approximately two hours into the day’s play, the money bubble was looming on the remaining 146 players. It would take thirty minutes for those two unfortunate players to be determined and, when it happened, it occurred in dramatic style.
After Joao Santos moved his short stack to the center of the felt, Robert Mizrachi pushed the action to 25K in an attempt to isolate. Vegard Froshaug wasn’t going to let Mizrachi go mano y mano against Santos, however, and announced he was all in for 71K in chips. After the big blind got out of the way, Mizrachi immediately called and (after a slight delay) tabled his pocket Aces against Froshaug’s pocket Queens and Santos’ A♠ Q♠.
The flop provided about as much drama as you could expect for the hand when it came down K♠ J♠ J♥, keeping Mizrachi in the lead but opening up straight, flush and royal flush options for Santos. An ebony card appeared on the turn, but it was a 2♣ to keep Mizrachi in the lead but still sweating. Mizrachi could wipe his brow once the K♥ fell on the river to give him the double knockout and send the remaining 144 players into the money.
With everyone now assured to be a bit richer from their stay in the Bahamas, the field quickly began to dissipate. Blomlie’s pocket Aces would eliminate George Danzer’s pocket tens and Danzer was quickly joined on the rail by such players as Shannon Shorr, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Curt Kohlberg, Will Molson, Dwyte Pilgrim, Matt Glantz and Lisa Hamilton, all of whom took home the minimum $15K.
Godoy and Serock would continue to add to their stacks as action moved into the evening, but it was Kelly who made the run of the day to the top of the leaderboard. Kelly would knock out Fabian Quoss in a cruel fashion when he flopped a Queen for his pocket ladies against Quoss’ pocket Aces. Kelly would then take down the first seven-figure pot of the tournament in a key battle with Michael Malm.
The players would get their chips to the center with Malm holding pocket Kings but way behind Kelly’s pocket Aces. There was paint on the flop, but it was a Queen and not the King that Malm needed. Once the board ran out double paired (Q-9-4-9-4), Kelly won the hand, but there was a moment to see just how many chips each player had in front of them. After the count was made, it was Kelly who had been at risk, but he wasn’t any longer once he raked in the 1.09 million pot that left Malm with only 80K to return to the fray.
Malm, for his part, used those leftover chips to go on a stirring run in his own right. He would double up several times to see his chip stack reemerge from the ashes and, by the end of the night, he was seemingly back in the game. While he could have simply given up after the crushing defeat at the hands of Kelly, Malm instead would finish the Day Three action with 658,000, arguably the standout play of the day.
Kelly cruised to the end of night chip bagging ritual, setting himself as the chip leader as Day Four play looms on Friday:
1. Patrick Kelly, 1.75 million
2. Joe Serock, 1.32 million
3. Darren Elias, 1.04 million
4. Michael Lipman, 1.035 million
5. Owen Crowe, 1.0 million
6. Maxim Panyak, 989,000
7. Nicholas Godoy, 848,000
8. Yann Dion, 829,000
9. Jerry Wong, 808,000
10. Anthony Borde, 796,000
Expanding out to the Top 25, Mizrachi, Blomlie and Malm are a part of the mix, while Dimitar Danchev, Eddy Sabat, Manig Loeser, Carlos Mortensen and Busquet are all set in striking position.
The plan for Friday’s Day Four play is to go a full five levels, but that could change if the field is chopped down quickly. If they are able to get to either 24 or 16 players, EPT officials are ready to stop play at that point to allow for Saturday action to set up for the final table on Sunday. Any way you look at it, it is going to be an exciting weekend of poker in the Bahamas as the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event crowns the first major champion of the year.
