Look who's chip leader!

Was there ever any doubt? The Argentinian superstar started the day fourth in chips of the 63 returning players and quickly rose to the highest. He stayed there for many 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 large blind behind Peter Siemund.

He soon put that right. He eliminated Domenico Gala in ninth place in a four million chip pot and can start the general table in pole position with almost double his nearest challenger. When play resumes they'll be 43 minutes left within 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 can also notice that we have got a woman on the final table. What's more she and Luca are an item. For many of the past two days Maria Lampropoulos beat a special drum to stick within the tournament, playing a brief to medium stack extremely well to stick alive.

Today she showed she will play when she gets her hands on chips too. She eliminated Jonas Lauck within the third level of the day to win an enormous 1,400,000 pot and climb to second on the time. She wouldn't be shifted either and can start tomorrow in 3rd spot with 2,455,000.

To folks who follow poker though her deep run should come as no surprise. She's been a tear of late. She finished 58th within 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.

Siemund separates the 2 Argentinians

The player who splits those two on the top of the chip counts is the one remaining German within the field. Peter Siemund largely flew under the radar today. That may be 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 highest of the chip counts until then, is available in with 895,000. He's the one Czech hope of a primary Eureka Main Event title.

Urban - compatible to the poker environment

The only other player with a stack of over 2m is David Urban and he squeaks in with 2,005,000. Inside the tournament we have 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 will now add a Eureka Main Event cash to these he's had at the EPT, Estrellas and UKIPT.

Stoyan Stefanov

It's a sophisticated final table - Argentina (!) are the one country with a couple of player - and the Eureka6 Rozvadov Main Event trophy may well 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 within the bottom half the chip counts but only Speiser is within the danger zone. They certainly cannot be discounted. Heder, for instance, finished fourth in a tremendous 2,292 runner tournament here in Rozvadov in January and Speiser has over $220,000 in live tournament earnings

Another cash for Kabrhel

Whilst those eight will return tomorrow to play for the trophy and a primary prize of €124,890 there have been 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) because the field was whittled right down to the overall eight. You'll find who's won what thus 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 all the way down to a Eureka champion. Meanwhile you'll make amends for all today's action here and here.

All photos are copyright of Tomas Stacha

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Eureka Poker Tour]