February 24 2011, Chris Hall

Seventy-three players returned Thursday for the start of Day 3 of the European Poker Tour Copenhagen Main Event. They would play down to the final three tables of eight players in preparation for the penultimate day which will come replete with a live webcast. After the dust was settled, it was Per Linde who finished the day with the chip lead (1,622,000) after some serious battling against fellow Swede Joel Nordqvist. Linde had deep runs at EPT Barcelona and San Remo last year as well as a third place in the WPT Grand Prix de Paris that Team PokerStars Pro Theo Jorgensen won last year.

Both Linde and Nordqvist overtook their compatriot Michael Tureniec early on in the day, shipping crucial pots at all the right times. Certainly for Linde, an 800,000-chip pot where his kings held against Team PokerStars Pro JP Kelly’s ace-king made all the difference to push his stack over the 1 million mark and dispatch a dangerous opponent. Linde then consolidated his stack knocking out several shorter opponents while Nordqvist dropped back a bit into the chasing pack though it remains to be seen tomorrow whether anyone can challenge the general Swedish dominance. At the end of the day however, Team PokerStars Pro Florian Langmann managed a late run to put himself into second place with 1,304,000 after having to grind throughout most of the day with a medium stack.

Before the money was even reached, nine unlucky souls would need to hit the rail. Amongst these were leading Player of the Year Fernando Brito and Josh Prager, both left to lament their misfortune and instead look towards the side events and cash games.

The bubble burst just after the start of the second level, with Dennis Bjerregaard losing the classic coinflip, (well, 57-43) when his pocket queens were defeated by Ørjan Skommo’s big-slick after the latter caught a king on the turn. As we moved into the money we began to lose many of our more high profile players including Team PokerStars Pros Kelly and Johnny Lodden as well as serial qualifier Pierre Neuville and double runner-up Martin Jacobson. Jacobson, looking at making back-to-back final tables went all-in on a board with but his fellow Swede Tureniec made the call with , the latter improving to the nut flush by the river.

We also lost our final former winner, EPT Barcelona winner Kent Lundmark who pushed with into to ensure that once again we will have a brand new champion to crown in two days time. Other players still involved include the two last remaining Brits, John Eames and Surinder Sunar as well former chip leader Tureniec, Finn Juha Helppi and last woman standing Pernille Ravn.

Friday, the final table of eight will be determined to find out who will be in line to take over from Anton Wigg as the new EPT Copenhagen champion. Join the Pokernews Live Reporting Team from midday Friday for the penultimate day here at the EPT!

Be sure to follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.