August 06 2011, Matthew Pitt

The 282 players who paid “4,250 to participate in the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Tallinn Main Event have been whittled down to the official final table of eight. Switzerland’s Ronny Kaiser is the man to beat when play resumes at 1200 EEST (0200 PDT) on Sunday.

On Saturday, 24 hopefuls returned to their seats, each guaranteed to walk away with no less than “7,500 for their efforts over the past week, and each still with a chance of becoming a European Poker Tour champion. The hopes and dreams of Michael Graydon, however, were completely shattered within the first 15 minutes of play when he was eliminated at the hands of Kaiser.

In the hand, Kaiser raised from the cutoff and Graydon three-bet from the small blind to 100,000. Kaiser tanked for close to a minute before moving all-in and Graydon snap-called. Kaiser held and was way behind the of his Irish opponent, but just as he did on Day 3, Kaiser came from behind and made a straight to crack an overpair. This time the board ran out and a very disappointed Graydon headed for the cashier’s desk.

After that hand, Kaiser’s stack grew to 1,800,000, which was over one million more chips than anyone else in the tournament had. He managed to continue accumulating chips to end the day with a 2,394,000 stack. Hot on the young pro’s heels is Grzegorz Cichocki who will return to the felt armed with 2,059,000 chips, the only other player to have passed the 2 million chip mark. This is Cichocki’s third cash in an EPT Main Event. He finished 20th at EPT Vilamoura, and more recently he was the 53rd-place finisher at the EPT Grand Final in Madrid.

Making up the final table are some extremely talented poker players who should make this one of the best final tables in EPT history. Third in chips is Finland’s Sami Kelopuro, better known as “LarsLuzak” in online poker circles. Kelopuro is in rich form at the moment having won the $10,000 Main Event of the PokerStars SCOOP series in May and then finishing runner-up to Ben Lamb in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship at the 2011 World Series of Poker. Those two cashes alone bagged him $1,008,134! Like Cichocki this is Kelopuro’s third cash at an EPT having finished 12th at the 2009 EPT San Remo and 12th at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo in 2010.

Other notables include Jani Sointula, British pro Stuart Fox and Erlend “Sir_Winalot9” Melsom. The final table promises to be an exciting affair, so you would be mad to miss it. Join the PokerNews Live Reporting team at 1200 EEST (0200 PDT) for all the action as it happens from the final table of the EPT Tallinn Main Event.

Here is how the final table will line up on Sunday.

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