The Season XVI WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open Championship is down to its final 14 players after a tense Day 3 of poker action from Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. A day that began with 53 hopefuls returning from a field of 911 entries saw 39 players hit the rail and Aleksandr Shevelev (pictured above) climb to the top of the leaderboard.
Shevelev’s chip-leading stack tallied in at 3.965 million in chips.
Shevelev is a Russian player with a little more than $22,000 in live tournament earnings, according to his HendonMob.com profile. Yes, $22,000. He has just four live cashes on his poker résumé and making his way to the final 14 of this event has guaranteed him an addition of $31,989 to his bankroll.
One of the cashes on Shevelev’s tournament record is a win from 2016 in a $250 buy-in event at Seminole Hard Rock. There, Shevelev topped a field of 229 entries and won $13,462.
“I don’t play offline poker a lot, so for me it’s a good experience,” Shevelev said when asked about his run in the Season XVI WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open Championship.
On his way to securing the chip lead heading into Day 4, Shevelev scored two big double ups through opponents at the table. He first doubled through Curt Kohlberg in Level 23, and then he doubled through Darryll Fish in Level 24. Fish would go on to finish the day with 2.165 million, and Kohlberg fell in 23rd place.
“I played a lot of big pots, and I had good cards,” Shevelev said of his day. “So everything was good.
“At the start of the day I was card-dead, and so I didn’t play a lot of pots. Later I doubled up, and got started.”
Second to Shevelev on the leaderboard is Ness Reilly (pictured below) with a stack of 3.31 million, and her run is quite notable following her performance just a few days prior in the WPTDeepStacks Hollywood event that drew 1,366 runners. In that $1,100 buy-in event, Reilly reached the final table and finished eighth for $29,587.
Reilly now takes the second largest stack into Day 4 of the Season XVI WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open $3,500 Championship with 14 players left from a field of 911.
Andy Frankenberger represents the only WPT Champions Club member remaining in the field, and he’ll enter Day 4 with 1.69 million in chips. That’s good for eighth on the leaderboard out of the remaining 14 players, and Frankenberger now carries the torch for the WPT Champions Club’s repeat hopes.
Of those to fall on the day was Ben Yu, who entered Day 3 with the chip lead and rode his stack to a 16th-place finish worth $26,102. Elsewhere, WPT Champions Club members Andjelko Andrejevic (24th), Matas Cimbolas (36th), Jason Brin (48th), and Mohsin Charania (52nd) were eliminated on the day.
Day 4 will see the final 14 players return to action at 12 p.m. local time on Tuesday, with all players guaranteed a minimum payday of $31,989. They’ll all be battling for a spot at the six-handed WPT final table and a chance to compete on Wednesday for the $511,604 top prize.
Stay tuned to WPT.com for continued coverage from the Season XVI WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open $3,500 Championship.
Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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