January 08 2012, Chad Holloway

The World Poker Tour Ireland continued on Saturday as the final 36 players of a 338-player field returned for Day 3 in pursuit of a “202,680 first-place prize. The Citywest Hotel in Dublin played host to the tournament as the remaining field, all of whom were in the money, were reduced to five. Leading the way with 6,155,000 in chips is Dave Shallow, who is the overwhelming chip leader.

Shallow, known as “CrabMaki” on PokerStars, played solid throughout the day but really showed his worth on the final table bubble when he scored a double elimination. According to the World Poker Tour Live Reporting Team, Shallow opened for 85,000 from early position, Steven Moreau reraised to 220,000, and Shaun Conning moved all-in. Shallow then moved all-in over the top for 2.4 million and Moreau snap-called. Shallow had both players covered.

Showdown
Shallow:
Moreau:
Conning:

It was a crazy hand at a crucial point of the tournament, and the flop seemed to indicate Moreau would win; however, the spiked on the turn to give Shallow a commanding lead. The river changed nothing and Shallow took down the huge pot, consequently sending Conning and Moreau home in seventh and sixth place respectively.

The action was fast and furious as half the field was eliminated in just four levels of play. Eliminations included Sam MacDonald (35th – $7,217), Con Collins (32nd – $7,217), Mike Hill (29th – $7,217), Tim Farrelly (25th-$8,192), and Dermot Blain (22nd – $8,192).

Blain, who finished in fifth place at this year’s World Series of Poker Europe for $367,362, was eliminated when Stuart Fox raised from early position only to have Blain move all-in. The rest of the field cleared out and Fox made the call.

Showdown
Fox:
Blain:

It was a bad spot for Blain and he was in desperate need of a ten. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t catch anything as the board ran out .

The middle stages of the tournament saw even more players fall including Franck Boyer (20th – $8,192), Jan Larsen (18th – $9,154), David Nicholson (13th – $10,116), and Daniel Smyth (11th – $11,079). With just four eliminations to go until the final table, perhaps the most notable player left in the tournament was sent packing.

It happened when Charles Chattha raised on the button only to have Ross Boatman move all-in from the small blind for approximately 300,000. The big blind got out of the way, Chattha insta-called, and the cards were turned on their backs:

Showdown

Chattha:
Boatman:

Boatman was dominated and watched as the flop came down , putting out some chop outs. The added to those chop outs, and Boatman could still hit a five to win, but it was not meant to be as the blanked on the river. Boatman was eliminated from the tournament in 10th place and earned $11,079 for his deep run.

From there, Stuart Fox (ninth – $16,384) and Robert Brull (eighth – $22,625) were eliminated, followed by the aforementioned double elimination of Conning and Moreau, putting a halt to the action as the official final table was reached – with just five players. Day 4 gets under way at 1500 GMT (0900 EST) on Sunday as the WPT Ireland will crown its first-ever champion.

World Poker Tour Ireland Final Table

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*Photo courtesy of the World Poker Tour.

Follow Chad Holloway on Twitter – @ChadAHolloway

January 07 2012, Donnie Peters

The first day of the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event is in the books. The day wasn’t too long, lasting just nine levels and ending before midnight in The Bahamas. It was an exciting one, though. For one, the field grew to 418 players on Day 1a. That’s a very good number considering all that has been affected from Black Friday and put the hopes of hitting around 1,200 extremely likely. Second, we saw the emergence of a big chip leader by the name of Alexey Repik.

Repik climbed all the way from the starting stack of 30,000 in chips to finish on 220,100. He played fairly aggressively for most of the day and used a rather unorthodox style as to what most players are doing these days. Instead of smaller raises preflop or smaller bet sizes compared to the pot, Repik was often raising well over three times the big blind and betting near full pot, if not a little more, during the day. Whatever he did worked though and he’ll be a very tough man to catch for the Day 1b competitors.

Along with Repik, some of the other players who bagged up bunches included Richard Bruning with 193,100, Salvatore Bianco with 192,400, Faraz Jaka with 129,500 and Adam Levy with 115,000.

Levy got himself off to a great start. He worked his way up near 60,000 early on, but then ran pocket kings into pocket aces and was crushed all the way back to 11,000. Despite the misfortune Levy fought back and was able to find a few doubles to get himself back in the game. The double that gave him a six-figure stack came in the last level of the night when Levy was all in preflop for 56,000 with the against the of Jamie Rosen. An ace on the turn gave Levy what he needed to win the hand and sent his stack soaring.

Also building some nice towers on the first day were Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin, Christian De Leon, Jude Ainsworth and Pat Pezzin. Fellow Team Pros Angel Guillen and Leo Fernandez have also advanced to Day 2.

Some of the notables who were eliminated on the day included Tristan Wade, Mohsin Charania, Brandon Cantu, Chris Moorman and Shaun Deeb. Team PokerStars players to fall included Johnny Lodden, Chris Moneymaker and Chad Brown. At the end of play, the board read that just over 200 players remained.

Day 1b kicks off at 1200 EST (1700 GMT) on Sunday and the field will be much, much larger. Some of the pros slated to play include last year’s champion Galen Hall, Team PokerStars Pros Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst and Daniel Negreanu, Dan Shak, Matt Waxman, Eugene Katchalov and Jen Harman. PokerNews will be here to provide all the updates from the floor and you should be, too.

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Follow Donnie Peters on Twitter – @Donnie_Peters