Was there ever any doubt? The Argentinian superstar started the day fourth in chips of the 63 returning players and quickly rose to the top. He stayed there for most of the day. When his compatriot, Andres Viola, was eliminated in tenth place to set the unofficial final table of nine he was actually in second place, half a big blind behind Peter Siemund.
He soon put that right. He eliminated Domenico Gala in ninth place in a four million chip pot and will start the final table in pole position with almost double his nearest challenger. When play resumes they'll be 43 minutes left in the 30,000/60,000 (10,000 ante) level.
| FINAL TABLE SEAT DRAW | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seat | Name | Country | Status | Chips |
| 1 | Mick Heder | Denmark | 1,370,000 | |
| 2 | David Urban | Slovakia | 2,005,000 | |
| 3 | Hannes Speiser | Austria | PokerStars player | 445,000 |
| 4 | Stoyan Stefanov | Bulgaria | 1,505,000 | |
| 5 | Maria Lampropoulos | Argentina | 2,455,000 | |
| 6 | Ivan Luca | Argentina | 5,355,000 | |
| 7 | Peter Siemund | Germany | 2,845,000 | |
| 8 | Robert Kokoska | Czech Republic | 895,000 |
The eagle eyed amongst you may notice that we have a lady at the final table. What's more she and Luca are an item. For most of the past two days Maria Lampropoulos beat a different drum to stay in the tournament, playing a short to medium stack extremely well to stay alive.
Today she showed she can play when she gets her hands on chips too. She eliminated Jonas Lauck in the third level of the day to win a huge 1,400,000 pot and climb to second at the time. She wouldn't be shifted either and will start tomorrow in 3rd spot with 2,455,000.
To those who follow poker though her deep run should come as no surprise. She's been a tear of late. She finished 58th in the EPT Dublin Main Event and followed that up with a second place in a WPT National event in Brussels just 10 days ago. That result was good for €68,200.
The player who splits those two at the top of the chip counts is the only remaining German in the field. Peter Siemund largely flew under the radar today. That is until he won a 2,300,000 chip pot with ace-king against the ace-queen of Robert Kokoska. That explains why he starts tomorrow's final table with 2,845,000 whilst Kokoska, who was near the top of the chip counts until then, comes in with 895,000. He's the only Czech hope of a first Eureka Main Event title.
The only other player with a stack of over 2m is David Urban and he squeaks in with 2,005,000. Throughout the tournament we've seen him content to play post-flop poker and he's a danger, make no bones about it. He's got over $300,000 in lifetime earnings and can now add a Eureka Main Event cash to those he's had on the EPT, Estrellas and UKIPT.
It's a cosmopolitan final table - Argentina (!) are the only country with more than one player - and the Eureka6 Rozvadov Main Event trophy could be heading to Bulgaria, Denmark or Austria tomorrow.
Stoyan Stefanov (1,505,000), Mick Heder (1,370,000) and Hannes Speiser (445,000) may all find themselves in the bottom half of the chip counts but only Speiser is in the danger zone. They certainly can't be discounted. Heder, for instance, finished fourth in a massive 2,292 runner tournament here in Rozvadov in January and Speiser has over $220,000 in live tournament earnings
Whilst those eight will return tomorrow to play for the trophy and a first prize of €124,890 there were 55 players who had their Eureka title dreams ended today. Michael Eiler, who returned with 1.7 big blinds, was first out and was followed by the likes of: Martin Kabrhel (51st), Tonino Schmitz (39th), Andreas Gann (38th), Grzegorz Wyraz (16th) and Daniel Rose (13th) as the field was whittled down to the final eight. You can see who's won what so far here.
Of more importance though is what's up for grabs tomorrow:
| Place | Name | Country | Status | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | € 124,890 | |||
| 2 | € 76,700 | |||
| 3 | € 54,800 | |||
| 4 | € 41,500 | |||
| 5 | € 33,100 | |||
| 6 | € 25,340 | |||
| 7 | € 18,330 | |||
| 8 | € 12,500 |
We'll be back tomorrow from 3pm CET as final eight play down to a Eureka champion. Meanwhile you can catch up on all today's action here and here.
All photos are copyright of Tomas Stacha
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Eureka Poker Tour]
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