December 08 2011, Eric Ramsey

From a record-smashing starting field of 722 players, the final 136 returned to the felt on Thursday at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Prague. It was Day 3, and the bubble was looming. Garry Tesorov held the lead when play began and after seven levels is still alive and kicking. Holland’s Patrick Renkers has overtaken him for the chip lead, however, and his count of 2.423 million gives him the most ammunition heading into Friday’s penultimate day. In fact, he’s got nearly double the chips of his nearest rival, Martin Finger.

Early exits from the Day 3 field included Ramez Haddad, Narendra Banwari, David Peters, Dominik Nitsche, and Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden.

As expected, the pace of the eliminations tapered off as they closed in on the 104-player mark and the start of the payouts. Once play made it to the hand-for-hand stage on the direct bubble, it took nearly a full level to find the unlucky elimination. Mads Amot went home with the proverbial wooden spoon in 105th place, but the other 104 returned from a break to learn they had all made some money.

Once the bubble was out of the way, the processional to the cashier could commence. Small cashers included EPT6 Grand Final champion Nicolas Chouity, Grayson Ramage, Marty Smyth and Mike Watson.

Team PokerStars Pros Liv Boeree and Dag Palovic had been plodding along rather well, but their respective exits came within just minutes of each other.

Boeree fell first when she called a five-bet shove with . Tevosov was the one flipping against her with , and the board was all on the wrong end of the deck for Boeree. She was out and Palovic lost a flip of his own with pocket nines to follow her to the payout desk. Those exits left Jude Ainsworth and Juan Manuel Pastor as the last remaining members of the PokerStars family. They both survived and will return on Friday with 929,000 and 742,000 chips, respectively.

The bust-outs mounted, but a few other notables were finding some success accumulating stacks. Mike “Timex” McDonald began the day under 150,000, but he improved upon that with the elimination of Max Silver halfway through the day. Silver was short when he shoved with , and McDonald’s ended up flushing the river to earn the knockout.

After a subsequent slip-up, McDonald doubled back when his pocket nines rivered a lucky set against Nicolas Leger’s pocket jacks. That was the end of the downswing, and McDonald’s stack swelled over the final three levels. His pocket aces beat Petr Jaros twice – once right before dinner and again right after – and McDonald finished the day with 740,000 chips in his bag. Perhaps coincidentally, or perhaps not, this event marks the four-year anniversary of his first tournament cash. What’s more, he’s the only former EPT champion still in contention to become the tour’s first double champion.

Nobody had a better day than Renkers, though. He began play with a decent stack of 308,000 but fell down around 150,000 in the early going. But no worries for the Dutchman. He moved up over 600,000 when he flush-over-flushed Lebanon’s Danny Richa. Just a few minutes later, he moved over the million-chip mark when his pocket aces found action from Torsten Otte’s inferior pocket kings. After knocking out Joe Serock, Renkers pulled in the biggest pot of the tournament in a tangle with fellow big stack Dennis Bejedal.

Bejedal flopped middle set with pocket queens, but Renkers called a check-raise and drilled his gunshot Broadway draw on the turn. Bejedal ended up paying off a big river shove, and the grandaddy pot was pushed to his corner to give him heaps of momentum. He only trended up from there, finishing strong with well over 10 percent of the total chips in play.

The 31 survivors will return to the Hilton Prague at 1200 CET (0300 PST) on Friday to play down to the final table. Here’s how the top ten stack up:

PlayerChips

Patrick Renkers	2,423,000
Martin Finger	1,289,000
Denys Drobyna	1,218,000
Vojtech Ruzicka	1,128,000
Mads Wissing	1,059,000
Ari Engel	1,053,000
Nicolas Levi	948,000
Jude Ainsworth	929,000
Ramil Boyazitov	892,000
Yann Brosolo	828,000

Our live reporting team will be back tableside, and you can follow along with all of the action as the field is reduced to the final table.

In the meantime, follow us on Twitter to keep up with all the goings-on elsewhere in the poker world.

Follow Eric Ramsey on Twitter – @Eric_Ramsey

September 01 2011, Mickey Doft

Each week, the Global Poker Index releases a list of the top 300 tournament poker players in the world. The cutoff for incorporating the weekly GPI standings is Monday, so the WPT Legends of Poker results aren’t reflected in this week’s standings. Still, there were many players who saw significant movement in their rankings. Here’s a look at this week’s GPI top 10. For a look at the entire list of 300, visit the official GPI website.

The Top 10 as of August 29, 2011

Changes in the Top Ten

Making his debut in the top ten this week is Scott Seiver. His second-place finish in the 2011 LA Poker Classic heads-up event fell out of his Period 1 results. However, it immediately counts toward his Period 2 because he only had one other cash in that span. With that extra finish now being calculated by the GPI, Seiver saw a solid gain this week.

Welcome to the GPI

Nine players, some of who had been on the GPI before, are new additions to this week’s list.

New Additions

PlayerTotal GPI ScoreGPI Rank

Erich Kollmann	1,100.01	249th
Matt Berkey	1,091.99	256th
Scott Baumstein	1,091.56	257th
Dmitry Vitkind	1,048.14	278th
James Mitchell	1,035.80	284th
Valdemar Kwaysser	1,013.79	296th
Florian Langmann	1,013.25	297th
Brian Hawkins	1,012.97	298th
Alan Sternberg	1,010.44	300th

Those who fell off of the GPI this week are Darryll Fish, Frederik Jensen, Zach Clark, Vladimir Geshkenbein, Phillippe Ktorz, Matt Jarvis, Jonathan Karamalikis, James St. Hilaire, and Brandon Cantu.

Ups and Downs

While there were no massive moves up the ranks this week, the biggest belonged to Ivan Freitez-Rosales. The 2011 EPT Grand Final champion doesn’t have any recorded cashes since then, yet still made the biggest jump this week. How is that? Previously with no cashes in his Period 2 calculations, Freitez-Rosales received a huge boost this week with his 16th-place result in the 2011 EPT Copenhagen Main Event moving from Period 1 to Period 2. That gives him three cashes still in Period 1, while finally giving the system a number to calculate for Period 2. Put it together and Freitez-Rosales is your big mover of the week.

Biggest Gains

RankPlayerTotal ScoreChange in Rank From Last Week

53rd	Surinder Sunar	1,607.20	+24
76th	Randy Dorfman	1,523.67	+40
77th	Thorsten Schafer	1,515.30	+25
81st	Ty Reiman	1,502.32	+22
117th	Tim West	1,372.20	+36
137th	Dan Heimiller	1,315.19	+41
139th	Jon Turner	1,311.37	+34
144th	David “ODB” Baker	1,299.42	+28
202nd	Ivan Freitez-Rosales	1,186.69	+47
217th	Ronald Lee	1,165.03	+44

Seeing his standing drop the most this week was Hungarian Andras Nemeth. There were two reasons for his fall. First, he only has three cashes since February. The first of those cashes no longer counts toward Period 1 since six months have elapsed. The second reason is similar to the first, with a cash changing periods. His 41st-place finish in the 2010 EPT Vilamoura Main Event now counts for his Period 3 results and not Period 2.

It’s a similar story for Mike Sowers. His 36th-place finish in the 2011 LA Poker Classic Main Event in February no longer counts toward his Period 1 results. In addition, his third-place score in the 2009 LA Poker Classic Main Event now falls under his Period 6 results, rather than Period 5.

Biggest Drops

RankPlayerTotal ScoreChange in Rank From Last Week

103rd	Nicolas Levi	1,418.39	-38
128th	Mike Sowers	1,334.78	-58
141st	Nicolo Calia	1,304.88	-54
198th	Alexander Dovzhenko	1,189.36	-53
205th	Richard Toth	1,183.56	-64
208th	Frank Calo	1,179.90	-62
281st	Brett Richey	1,041.82	-30
294th	Andras Nemeth	1,020.90	-83

What’s In Store?

With the 2011 WPT Legends of Poker results counting toward next week’s rankings, you can bet that Will “The Thrill” Failla will improve upon his current 43rd-place position. The 2011 EPT Barcelona wraps up Thursday and will also count toward next week’s rankings. Eugene Katchalov is at the final table and just maybe, he’ll make a run toward the top spot on the GPI depending on his finish.

Erik Seidel, on the other hand, may fall from his No. 2 position. When the rankings are calculated next week, it will have been six months since his win at the NBC National Heads-Up Championship. That result will slip into Period 2 and will no doubt lower his Period 1 score. The same can be said for Jonathan Duhamel and Andrew Robl, the third and fourth place finishers in the NBC National Heads-Up Championship. How far will they all fall? We’ll find out next week.

As a reminder, for a look at the entire list of 300, visit the official GPI website. While you’re at it, follow the GPI on Twitter and its Facebook page.

To stay on top of the GPI and other happenings in the poker world, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Follow Mickey Doft on Twitter – @mrdoft

Comments