Boris Kolev Leads Last 24 in Barcelona; WPT Champion Marcin Wydrowski in Contention

Day 3 of the WPT Barcelona Season 2018-2019 €3,300 Main Event at Casino is completed after eight and a half levels, and the remaining 24 hopefuls out of a field of 1,227 entries bagged up their chips when the redraw of the last three tables was reached. All remaining players have at least €20,750 locked up for efforts, but all eyes are set on the top prize of €600,o00, which includes entry to the WPT Tournament of Champions in Las Vegas worth $15,000.

Boris Kolev (pictured above) topped the counts with a stack of 3,000,000, and the Bulgarian was already in prime position for the final day of the WPT500 a few days ago, but came short of victory and had to settle for 21st place back then instead. The nearest followers of Kolev are Eric Sfez (2,670,000) and David Hu (2,550,000), but several other players are not far behind such as Alain Zeidan (2,550,000), Juan Arango (2,545,000) and Vitalijs Zavorotnijs (2,150,000).

Arango, Zeidan and Hu won the biggest pots of the tournament so far in the late stages of the day. Arango hit an ace on the river to see his ace-queen end up victorious against the pocket queens of Arne Coulier. Hu turned a set of tens against Anas Belatik, who sent into showdown with king-queen for top pair. Last but not least, Zeidan held up with pocket jacks against the ace-ten of Omar Del Pino.

Further notables still in contention are Niko Koop (1,765,000), Jerry Odeen (1,430,000), Martins Adeniya (1,330,000), Ioannis Angelou-Konstas (1,215,000),  2017 WSOP Europe Main Event 4th place finisher Robert Bickley (1,195,000), Arnaud Enselme (1,090,000), Jason Tompkins (670,000) and Paul-Francois Tedeschi (650,000).

The sole remaining WPT Champions Club member that advanced to Day 4 is Marcin Wydrowski, who will return with 375,000, which is good enough for 12 big blinds for the remainder of level 26 at blinds of 15,000/30,000 and a big blind ante of 30,000.  Former WPT champion Juha Helppi was among the players to leave empty-handed without anything to show for, while Davidi Kitai, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, and Denys Shafikov added another WPT cash to their poker resume.

Shafikov (pictured above) fell just shy of bagging and tagging for Day 4. He first lost most of his chips in a coin flip with ace-ten suited against the pocket sevens of Marcin Kreft, who rivered a four-card flush. Shafikov then jammed the next hand with nine-seven and Nicolas Noguera called with ace-deuce. An open-ended straight draw on the flop was not enough, as Noguera turned a pair of aces and the river gave Shafikov an inferior pair.

Other notables that cashed but didn’t bag up chips were Morten Mortensen, Peter Jaksland, Anton Wigg, Tobias Peters, Joao Vieira, Christophe de Meulder, partypoker pro Joni Jouhkimainen, Bart Lybaert, David Boyaciyan, partypoker LIVE MILLIONS champion Maria Lampropulos, Pawel Brzeski, two-time WSOP bracelet winner Timur Margolin and Milan Rabsz.

Jaksland saw his pocket aces cracked by the pocket tens of Juan Arango in the penultimate level of the night, while Jouhkimainen failed to hold up with ace-queen against the ace-nine of Tony Salame. De Meulder was among those that ended up all in on the money bubble and survived with pocket jacks against ten-four suited before making several pay jumps.

The floodgates with all in showdowns every other minute kicked off after the money bubble had burst. Mid-way through the second level of the day, Michael Kane fell two spots short of a €6,000 min-cash. After around a dozen hands on the stone-cold bubble that followed, it was Sharon Akirov that ended up as the bubble boy. Down to very few chips, he was all in with pocket queens against the ace-jack of Adam Hilton and a jack on the flop was followed by a jack on the river to give Hilton trips jacks.

A plethora of eliminations followed and the redraw of the last three tables was reached mid-way through the final scheduled level of the night. All remaining 24 contenders for the elusive WPT Main Event title bagged up and will return for half an hour at blinds of 15,000/30,000 and a big blind ante of 30,000 as of 12 p.m. noon local time.

The 30-second Action Clock by Protection Poker remains in play and all participants will receive six 30-second time banks. The fourth and penultimate tournament day will play down to the six-handed final table, which will be streamed on a security delay of 30 minutes with hole cards displayed on Sunday, March 17th, 2019.