If Sunday was a marathon at the 2011 European Poker Tour (EPT) San Remo Main Event, then Monday was a nice, easy cool down. In an effort to clear the tournament of as many people as possible, tournament officials let the action run from 2:00pm to 2:00am on Sunday’s Day 2. The field was slashed by almost 340 players, so the decision paid off, but the remaining players had to be tired…and they weren’t even in the money yet. Day 3 was different, though. The plan Monday was to get the field from 144 players down to 64, or eight tables of eight. Fortunately, that took just five and a half hours, which included breaks. With the money bubble burst and pressure now starting to mount, Canada’s Christopher McClung is the chip leader with a stack of 1,202,000.
McClung is the only player above one million chips. In fact, he’s the only one to have topped 900,000. With blinds and antes about to hit 5,000/10,000/1,000, his 349,000 chip lead over his closest competitor is no small gap. But there’s still a ways to go to win the whole thing and as we all know, anything can happen in poker. After McClung, there is a bit of a log jam amongst the chip leaders, with four players in the 800,000’s and three more in the 700,000’s.
The chip leader going into the day, Joseph Cheong, is still going strong, increasing his stack by 200,000. He is now sitting in fourth place with 833,000 chips. Other notables still alive are Johnny Lodden (793,000), Lex Veldhuis (687,000), 2008 EPT Dortmund champ Mike McDonald (648,000), 2010 EPT Berlin champ Kevin MacPhee (476,000), Vanessa Selbst (400,000), John Duthie (319,000), and Barny Boatman (292,000).
MacPhee was involved in one of the biggest hands of the day. He opened the betting pre-flop with a raise to 8,500, followed by a re-raise to 18,500 from William Thorson. MacPhee four-bet to 68,500, only to see Thorson five-bet to 128,500 after some time in the tank. Undaunted, MacPhee took it up to 233,000. Thorson went into the tank again, during which time the tournament went into hand-for-hand mode on the bubble. Finally making his decision, Thorson called and the two finally saw a flop of Qc-Td-5d. Not wasting any time, MacPhee put his remaining 161,500 chips in the pot. After more time pondering his move, Thorson finally gave it up, delivering the gigantic pot to MacPhee. MacPhee was up to 637,000 at that point, and while he has given a bunch of it back, he is still in solid shape for Day 4. Thorson fell to 283,500 and is now out of the race.
Day 4 will once again start at 2:00pm and will run until just 23 players remain.
2011 European Poker Tour San Remo Main Event – End of Day 3 Chip Leaders
1. Christopher McClung – 1,202,000
2. Daniel Neilson – 853,000
3. Angelo Tarallo – 840,000
4. Joseph Cheong – 833,000
5. Alessio Isaia – 818,000
6. Johnny Lodden – 793,000
7. Javier Ferrero – 780,000
8. Aleksandar Kostadinovic – 763,000
9. Lex Veldhuis – 687,000
10. Elio Fox – 652,000
