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Irish Poker Open – Day 3 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2010-04-06 16:10
The third day of the Irish Poker Open saw the final table reached. The returning players played right down to the final 8. The Day 3 survivors went to bed content in the knowledge that they all had a minimum payout of €56,000 guaranteed. Saeri Valikoski finished atop the day’s chip leaderboard, with a stack of 1.7 million, which will probably go a long way towards landing him deeper in the money at the final table.
Local player Liam Flood was the one who started the day in the chip lead, but he locked horns with Valikoski several times, giving him a huge pot first, and then getting bounced by the Finn.
Valikoski started the day on the right foot: he began by picking off Petter Krikkay’s bluff to score a huge pot in the early running. Tyler Bonkowski also gave up a buge pot to contribute to Valikoski’s rise through the ranks.
James Mitchell had a pretty good start to his day 3, and he even assumed the leader’s position for a while after having won a huge pot off Martin Hanitz, on a Q,Q vs As, Js match-up.
Mitchell then went on to eliminate Maurice Whelan, the player who seemed rather impossible to do away with, having survived numerous all-in, do or die situations before his confrontation with Mitchell.
The last standing online poker qualifier would earn a special reward in this poker tournament. The “Sole Survivor” award ended up in Rob Sherwood’s possession, after Barry Donovan, the only other
online poker player in the books had his A,K crushed by Declan Connoly’s pocket Kings and left the
poker tournament.
This award must have made Sherwood’s day, because it consisted of a €100k prize, which - together with the money he had already secured in the event – made up a more than handsome sum. Even though he’s one of the two short-stacks, Sherwood obviously hopes to take more than the minimum guaranteed by his final table presence.
Several of the previous two days’ strong performers ran out of steam on Day 3. Jen Mason was among them, together with Stuart Rutter, Nick Persaud and Keith Hawkins.
Paul Carr will start the final table second in chips with 1.59 million.
