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Day 3 of the World Poker Tour (WPT) bestbet Open Main Event started with just 25 players remaining. So, needing just 19 eliminations to reach the six-handed final table, it seemed like Monday would be a fairly short day. It wasn’t. It took about twelve hours to get the field whittled down to final table size. Leading the way with a large chip lead is Danny Schechter, who bagged up 3.825 million chips.

There is a steep drop off to the next player, Michael Linster, as he is 1.7 million behind with 2.15 million chips. Closely grouped with him is David Bell, who has 1.98 million. The next two are bunched together, as well: Pete Chwala has 1.18 million chips and Pete Tinnesz has 1.035 million. After that, David Diaz is languishing as the short stack with just 375,000 chips.

That Diaz is that far behind is surprising. He went into Day 3 with one of the most dominating chips stacks we’ve seen to start a tournament day. His 1.705 million chips were more than the next two largest stacks combined and he was the only player in the field of 25 with a chip stack higher than the average. That said, he still made the final table, so that large lead certainly helped him.

Danny Schechter was a similar interesting story on Day 3, but in reverse. He went into the day as the absolute shortest stack with just 52,000 chips. Within the first two hours, however, he doubled-up three times to find a bit of a comfort zone. When the tournament got down to the final ten players, though, he was back down to the short stack (though with more chips than he had to start the day). He then got back to work, doubling-up a couple times to get his stack to over a million chips. He climbed the ladder from there, making his biggest move with only about three orbits remaining for the day.

Benjamin Zamani raised pre-flop to 65,000, Michael Linster and Pete Chwala called, David Bell re-raised to 160,000, Schechter called, as did the three other players, setting up a healthy pot before any community cards had been dealt. On the flop of 6-5-4, Shechter bet 225,000 only to see Zamani move all-in for 670,000 chips. The other three players folded and Schechter made the call, revealing pocket Sixes for top set. Zamani was in trouble, holding a really good hand – pocket Fours – but that bottom set needed a lot of help. Zamani wasn’t able pick up quads or a running straight and he was eliminated in ninth place. That hand took Schechter’s stack all the way to 3.14 million and he didn’t look back the rest of the night.

The final table of the WPT bestbet Open Main Event runs Tuesday afternoon at bestbet Jacksonville and will go until we have a winner.

2013 World Poker Tour bestbet Open – Day 3 Chip Leaders

1.    Danny Schechter – 3,825,000
2.    Michael Linster – 2,150,000
3.    David Bell – 1,980,000
4.    Pete Chwala – 1,180,000
5.    Pete Tinnesz – 1,035,000
6.    David Diaz – 375,000

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