Home / Poker News February 2010 / PartyPoker Premier League 4 – heat 3
PartyPoker Premier League 4 – heat 3
Posted by: Jo Martin - Tue, 2010-02-16 23:25
The third heat of the PartyPoker Premier League came to a conclusion on Sunday, with David Benyamine scoring a win to take his points total to 24, good enough for second place on the leader board, right behind Phil Laak who has 32 points.
Benyamine defeated online poker qualifier Giovanni Safina heads-up this time. Safina currently sits in 5th place overall, with 15 points. Daniel Negreanu and Tony G bring up the rear with 4 and 2 points respectively.
Sunday’s heat got off to a much slower start than the previous two outings. Nobody was in a hurry to hit the rail, and everyone managed to avoid elimination until past the dinner break. The slow start was probably due to strategic maneuvering on the part of players with low point totals who were trying to secure a 4th place or better, to keep their chances for the final table alive.
Eventually, eliminations did start rolling. Roland De Wolfe was the first one to hit the rail. Vanessa Rousso and Phil Hellmuth followed him to the sidelines soon.
Daniel Negreanu was the one responsible for Phil Hellmuth’s elimination. The two players got all their chips into the middle, Negreanu holding a K,Qo against Hellmuth’s A,6o. The Canadian proceeded to out-flop the Brat and Hellmuth was done, a 6-point total written next to his name on the leader board.
At that point, Negreanu had built a pretty impressive stack, but he then lost 3 big pots in a row to be pushed to the brink of elimination. Safina moved in for the kill, His Ah, Qh more than a match for Negreanu’s A,6o.
As the blinds slowly grew out of control, the closing stages of the heat saw much faster action. Ian Frazer was bounced in 4th place, followed by Yevgeniy Timoshenko in 3rd. In the heads-up battle between online poker qualifier Safina and Full Tilt Poker pro David Benyamine, Lady Luck had more than a word to say. The final and decisive hand of the poker tournament saw David Benyamine’s K,10o go up against go up against Safina’s Kd,Jd on a flop of K,7,2 rainbow. The turn brought a 10 to put Benyamine into the lead, and the 2s on the river sealed the deal.
