Day 3 has come and gone at the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event and only about a tenth of the original field – 50 players – remain. Lording over the surviving players is 2013 WSOP Main Event champion Ryan Riess, who is trying to become the second player in history to win both the traditional WSOP Main Event and the WSOPE Main Event. Phil Hellmuth is the only player to have done it, nabbing the WSOP Main Event in 1989 and the WSOPE Main Event in 2012.
Riess has a tremendous chip lead, holding 4.233 million chips. His closest competitor is Ivan Gabrieli, with 2.412 million chips. Now, we don’t normally see a chip leader – even with an advantage this large – cruise from midway through a major tournament to victory, but this certainly sets up nicely for Riess. The competition behind him right now is tight; after Gabrieli, four players have stacks ranging from about 1.9 million to 2.2 million.
“Today was great,” Riess told WSOP.com once the day concluded. “It started really badly; I had 150,000 at 3,000/6,000, and then this guy moved to my right with just a ton of chips, and I got really lucky against him. I doubled through him a lot, and it was just a good day.”
Riess has nearly $13 million in live tournament earnings, but not all of that is from his Main Event win. Sure, he cashed for over $8.3 million a few years ago, but that leaves him with several million in earnings from tournaments that were not the 2013 WSOP Main Event. In each of the last two calendar years (and we know he has cashed in the current tournament, which isn’t on his record yet), Riess has made $1.8 million. His best cash other than the Main Event was last year, when he won the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Finale for $716,088.
In speaking with WSOP.com, Riess explained – in so many words – that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
“The WSOP is a little bit different here than it is in Vegas. It’s actually a lot different than Vegas. But it’s still the same tournament, it’s still the same old Main Event. The buzz is different around it here in Rozvadov, but it’s still a very prestigious tournament,” Riess said.
One cool note from Tuesday is the achievement of Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler. Kessler has $3.5 million in live tournament winnings and is perhaps best known for his penchant to min-cash. With all of his tournament experience, though, and all of his success, Kessler has never cashed – not even a min-cash – in a World Series of Poker Main Event. He finally did it yesterday, finishing the day 37th in chips.
2018 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event – Day 3 Chip Leaders
1. Ryan Riess – 4,233,000
2. Ivan Gabrieli – 2,412,000
3. Gary Hasson – 2,198,000
4. Michal Schuh – 2,056,000
5. Igor Kurganov – 2,000,000
6. Sylvain Loosli – 1,927,000
7. Liwei Sun – 1,656,000
8. Bahram Chobineh – 1,560,000
9. Dario Sammartino – 1,503,000
10. Joel Ettedgi – 1,500,000
