Day 3 at Bellagio Goes Down the Toilet

Level 15: 4,000-8,000, 500 ante

By the end of the day here at Bellagio the room could only talk about one thing: the unstoppable force that was Faraz "The-Toilet" Jaka.  Jaka came into the day second in chips, but laid low during the first part of the day while Alec "traheho" Torelli continued to dominate as chip leader.  Torelli jumped from 590,000 chips to nearly 900,000 chips in the matter of one level and spent most of the day above the million chip mark, but a late double up of Uri Kadosh left him with 703,000 to end the day.

While Torelli was fading late in Day Three, Jaka went on tear that pushed him from 750,000 to end the day with 3.2 million chips.  The young online poker pro surged back to the top of the leaderboard when his Q7 cracked another player's pocket aces when he turned a flush to the other player's top set on a 963A board.  The two players got it all-in and Jaka's flush held to send him up to 1.8 million.

Had Jaka just held steady at that amount to end the day he would have still been chip leader.  However, his good fortune continued as he busted players in back to back hands making quad kings and then quad aces to send him up to the 3 million chip mark and gain a 2 million chip lead over his next closest competitor, Anthony "holdplz" Spinella who ended the day with 1,250,000.  Jaka's enormous chip stack was so overwhelming that other players seated with him joked that the weight of it was going to break the table.

Day 3 also saw several players tournaments come to an end.  After a dominant performance on Day 1 and most of Day 2, Season VII LA Poker Classic winner Cornell Andrew Cimpan was eliminated. Cimpan appeared poised to mount a comeback after plummeting from 500,000 chips to 80,000 chips to end Day 2.  Cimpan worked his way back up over 300,000 chips today before he got it all-in drawing to only four outs.  He failed to get lucky and was sent home midway through the day.

Today also saw the elimination of last year's Bellagio Cup winner, Mike "SirWatts" Watson. Watson had trouble getting anything going on Day 3 and bled chips for half of the day before getting knocked out by Javed Abrahams midway through the day.  There is still hope for a repeat champion this season though.  Season VI Bellagio Cup winner Kevin "BeL0WaB0Ve" Saul survived the day with 196,000 chips.

The final 31 players will return at 12PM tomorrow and hand-for-hand play will begin early in the day as players approach the money bubble.  Four players will walk away empty-handed while the remaining 27 will take home at least $23,245.