Day 4 : World Series Of Poker Europe


Big names fall by the wayside as WSOP Europe field narrows further.
 
Sunday's action at the GBP 10 000 buy-in World Series of Poker Europe Main Event in London saw the already reduced field cut by two thirds, leaving just 22 players to fight it out for a place at the final table.
 
By the end of a day in which chip leader changes were frequent, relatively unknown player Ronald Lee was top of the leader board on 947,000, ahead of nearest opponents David Peters on 829,000 and Andrew Pantling (821,000).
 
The enigmatic Viktor Blom, who started the day as chip leader, is still in the running and is fifth in the list of top ten competitors, just ahead of Phil Ivey.
 
The money bubble broke at the 37th elimination, guaranteeing the surviving players at least GBP 21,206 from a prize pool worth GBP 3,460,000 generated by the 346 entrants for the event.
 
Among the players still standing at the end of Day 3 were Hoyt Corkins, Nicolas Levi, Arnaud Mattern, Barney Boatman, Roland de Wolfe, two-time WSOP bracelet winner Greg Mueller and Bojan Gledovic, all keen to pick up the tempting main prize of GBP 830,401 and a winner's bracelet.
 
Not so fortunate were big names like Freddy Deeb, Barry Greenstein, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, James Mitchell and Bryn Kenney, who at least cashed, and those who headed for the exit with nothing at all such as November Niner John Dolan, Huck Seed, JP Kelly, Dan Shak, Nam Le and Daniel Negreanu, along with the last two women survivors, Barbara Martinez and Almira Scripchenko.
 
Monday's action commences at noon London time with the objective of reaching a 9 man final table.
 
Gus Hansen broke the bad luck streak that has dogged him recently by winning his first WSOP Europe bracelet in the final and somewhat delayed last leg of the GBP 10 350 buy-in Heads-up High Roller Event after a tough best-of-three deciding battle with Jim Collopy which saw the duo split the first two rounds last Friday.
 
The match ended Sunday evening in victory for Hansen, although in the early stages it looked as if the title was Collopy's as he powered to a 2 to 1 chip lead. Hansen doggedly fought back to take the bracelet and the first prize of GBP 288 409 after four hours, leaving Collopy with a well deserved runner-up paycheck for GBP 178 211.