The Ukraine’s Oleg Vasylchenko led wire-to-wire on Day 3 of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Prague Main Event to take the chip lead into the six-handed final table on Tuesday. With 1.595 million chips and a big blind of 20,000, he has an ample advantage on his closest competitor, Tonio Roder, who has 1.150 million. The next highest chip stack, belonging to Anton Petrov, is barely more than 700,000.
There were a total of 167 entries for WPT Prague, making it one of the smallest Main Events on the tour. It is always this way for the Prague stop, perhaps because it overlaps the popular WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio. The latter began today and already has 414 entrants; registration is open through the start Level 9 tomorrow. WPT Prague even had two starting flights, something normally reserved for much larger events. Day 1A saw just 69 players enter, while Day 1B had just 79; I could find bars around where I live that draw more players for poker night (then again, those games are free of charge, so I’m really just speaking out of my ass right now). Late registrations on Day 2 took the final entry total to where it stands now.
A total of 21 players will make the money, with €132,200 (including a €15,000 seat in the Tournament of Champions) going to the winner. The min-cash was €5,230.
Vasylchenko built up much of his stack to start Day 3 with a huge double elimination to end Day 2. According to the WPT.com live report, Hlib Kovtunov moved all-in pre-flop for 99,500 chips, as did Maxime Swennen for 93,500. Vasylchenko, who was already near the top of the chip standings, instantly called with pocket Aces. Kovtunov had A-K and Swennen had Queens, so each was in a very bad way (not that that wasn’t obvious when their opponent had Aces).
Swennen, though, hit his two-outer on the flop of T♣-6♣-Q♣, nailing a set to take the lead in the hand. The turn, though, was the 4♣, and as one of Vasylchenko’s Aces was a club, he had the hand nearly locked down. The 9♦ wasn’t enough for Swennen to make a boat, so both he and Kovtunov were eliminated. Because Swennen had slightly fewer chips at the start of the hand, he was the 22nd place finisher, the bubble boy of the tournament.
There was a bit of personal drama at the tables on Monday, too. When Eduards Kudrjavces was eliminated in seventh place to setup tomorrow’s final table, he refused to shake the hand of Martin Kabrhel (who was not the player who eliminated him). Earlier in the day, Kabrhel acted very slowly through the turn in a hand and the, even though he made a wheel on the river – not quite the nuts, but realistically, it was – he took several minutes to make a play and then took a few minutes ago to consider what to do when his opponent raised. Both times, he had the clock called on him and was called out for slow rolling when he finally won the hand.
Later, he had the clock called on him again. It appears that the players felt he was playing slowly on purpose, displaying a lack of sportsmanship. We’ll see what happens on Tuesday when tensions are even higher.
World Poker Tour Prague Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Oleg Vasylchenko – 1,595,000
2. Tonio Roder – 1,150,000
3. Anton Petrov – 704,000
4. Romain Lewis – 668,000
5. Preben Stokkan – 468,000
6. Martin Kabrhel – 465,000
