Home / Poker News September 2009 / EPT Barcelona Day 3 – Controversy strikes
EPT Barcelona Day 3 – Controversy strikes
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2009-09-11 05:18
The 72 players who bellied up to the tables of the Casino Barcelona on Day 3 of the EPT’s Main Event could finally focus on their play alone as the money bubble had been reached the day before and they were all safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t lose their buy-ins.
Matt Lapossie began the day in the chip lead, as he’d managed to build up a 700,000 chip stack the day before through a late burst that put him over 100,000 chips ahead of his closest pursuer.
Roland De Wolfe was among the “name” pros who survived to day 3 and he wasted no time storming out to double up and to add to his stack on every possible occasion. He first pitted his A,K against an opponent’s pocket 9s to double up. He caught an A on the flop and eventually made two pairs to send the other guy to the rail.
There was so much action around De Wolfe that controversy was bound to come along sooner or later. He locked horns with Tobias Reinkemeier in one hand and got to the river holding nothing but a K-high. He bet it and he was called by Reinkemeier. He then decided to show the K to his opponent and shoved his hand into the muck before Reinkemeier got the chance to show his hand. When he did, he turned over a Q-high and De Wolfe exploded, demanding that his hand be held valid. Staff analyzed the situation quickly and the pot ended up on Reinkemeier’s side of the table.
Crawling with former EPT champs like Noah Boeken, Jens Kyllonen, Mike McDonald and Bertrand Grospellier, the field slowly crept towards the final table. Under way, players dropped out left and right, among them Boeken who ended up in 58th place.
Matt Lapossie was busy through Day 3 as well, looking to preserve his chip lead. For the better part of the day he was successful at it too, but later on he became too bold or too greedy and a few of his bluffs went bust. He managed to recover towards the end of the day again though as he got an opponent all-in on a pocket rockets vs pocket Qs match-up.
Eventually, he finished with 1.6 million chips and ended up second on the provisional leader-board, right behind Georgios Kapalas who had amassed 1.7 million chips.
Samer Rahman, who had done so well on day 2, continued his aggressive trouncing of all those who dared stand up to him in the first part of day 3. Plagued by steep variance again though, he’d dropped most of his chips by the day’s end. The very last hand of Day 3 meant curtains for his tourney efforts. Up against Kapalas, he shoved all-in after he made two pairs on the river. Kapalas called him though and showed down the nut straight to see Rahman out as the last casualty of the session.
23 players will return to action on Day 4 to play down to the final table, among them most of the above mentioned former EPT champions, including Bertrand Grospellier.
