Just days after John Juanda claimed victory at the £10,000 no-limit Hold’em Main Event at the World Series of Poker Europe, nearly 600 of the best names in the game gathered once again in London for  the £5,200 buy-in European Poker Tour event. After intense action during the first two days, the field was whittled down to a final 32 players, with the goal being to reach the televised final-table of eight.

Day three began with perhaps the biggest name in the field going out first as Scotty Nguyen pushed all-in and was quickly sent packing. Other short-stacks, including Americans Beth Shak and Sorel Mizzi, also were relieved of their poker playing duties early in the day, finishing in 31st and 27th place, respectively.

The layout of the tournament left several players in no-man’s land, constantly pressured by the size of the blinds and other players’ larger stacks. For these players, a raise basically meant it was time to move the rest of their chips in, some with greater success than others. Alan Smurfit, Michael Tureniec, and Marcin Horecki were some examples of those who were able to be successful in riding out their short stacks all the way to the final-table.

Some of those that weren’t so lucky include French super-pro David Benyamine, tough Dane Peter Eastgate, and Italian-stallion Max Pescatori. Young American Michael Martin fared far better, acting as a wrecking-ball on the day, knocking out Gunner Rabe and Sorel Mizzi before winning the biggest pot of the day off of Pescatori. While this pot vaulted the young American into the chip lead, he finished the day fourth in chips with 718,000.

The final-table positions and chip stacks look like this:

Seat 1: Eric Liu — 1,308,000
Seat 2: Johannes Strassmann –434,000
Seat 3: Philippe D’Auteuil — 476,000
Seat 4: Antony Lellouche — 1,022,000
Seat 5: Michael Tureniec — 1,331,000
Seat 6: Alan Smurfit — 396,000
Seat 7: Marcin Horecki — 309,000
Seat 8: Michael Martin — 718,000

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