2015 PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Day 3: The Bubble Bursts and MacPhee Charges Hard

Frank Op de Woerd

Feb 04, 2015 4 min read Last updated Feb 05, 2015

The third day of a PokerStars European Poker Tour Main Event is traditionally the day the money is reached. Day 3 of the 2015 stop in Deauville, France, was no exception. Within a couple of hours of play some left with a sad face while others celebrated. The day started with 138 players hopeful of making the money, but in the end, only 87 would succeed in that endeavor.

Benjamin Pollak arrived at the table to find his bag of chips wrapped in another bag. When he opened them he discovered that he didn't have as much as he had written on the bag the night before. He thought he had 275,400, but at the start of the day he counted 267,000, a shortfall of just under three big blinds. The floor was called over and it was explained that an extra bag was sometimes used when it was felt the first one wasn't secure enough for some reason. The floor went off to investigate and came back shortly after to say there were no unaccounted for chips, and therefore nothing could be done.

That got the first bit of "excitement" out of the way. All other commotion today would come from play at the tables.

PokerStars-sponsored player Dominik Panka was the first of many notables to get eliminated. His ace-king couldn't win against Pierre Peretti's queens. Team PokerStars Pro Jan Heitmann wouldn't reach the money either. He first lost a big pot to a flopped straight, and eventually lost the rest of his chips limp reraising ace-king into jacks.

EPT Berlin winner and EPT London runner-up Kevin MacPhee lost some chips early on, only to bust Bernd Vogelhuber an hour later and pocket 160,000 in chips doing so. That wasn't even the biggest pot MacPhee would win today. He made a straight flush holding eight-seven suited and got paid off by Robert Schulz to get close to 600,000 in chips. He just about doubled that in the levels that followed.

After PokerStars Caribbean Champion champion Dimitar Danchev busted (tens to queens), the bubble was in sight. This reduced the speed of play as people were eager to take their time and attempt to sneak into the money. At one point, hands were taking so long that the tournament director decided to start hand-for-hand a bit earlier than normal.

Luciano Santos De Hollanda would bust in 89th place, not being able to outrun aces with his ace-queen suited. EPT Campione winner Jannick Wrang became the unluckiest player in the room some time later. With the cameras of the feature table buzzing around him, he made his move with ace-nine and ran his short stack into David Jaoui's pocket tens. The ten-high flop hurt Wrang and he wouldn't recover, despite picking up a gutshot on the turn. Wrang became Deauville's bubble and the 87 others celebrated.

As per usual, right after the bubble short stacks bust left and right. Some got eliminated in dramatic fashion, others quietly committed the last big blinds they saved to get into the money.

Eugene Katchalov, runner-up in this event here last year, was one leaving in silent fashion. He was one of the first to go after the bubble, ending his run in 86th place (�8,810). Simon Ravnsb?k was next on the list. The Dane spend the least time in the Main Event to earn that �8,810 as he was the last player registering for the tournament at the start of Day 2.

Katchalov's good friend Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier would do much better, keeping his stack up to par for most of the day. Just the last two levels saw Grospellier slipping, losing coin flips and hands that he was originally dominating. Grospellier seemed frustrated as he ended the day with 120,000 (12 big blinds).

Romanian player Dany Parlafes catapulted into the chip lead early on when he won a huge three-way all in with aces to the fours of shorty Jerome Zerbib and the queens of fellow big stack Vadim Shlez. He busted Tobias Peters with an over pair to the Dutchman's open-ended not much later to get to 1.4 million. He ended the day with 1,220,000, just not enough for the chip lead.

Parlafes wasn't the first to get to the million mark and wasn't the one with his name on top if the final list. That honor went to Georgios Kapalas from, you guessed it, Greece. The biggest pot Kapalas won was a hand where he flopped a pair and flush draw and got it in against pocket aces. Kapalas rivered trips to bust Boutros Naim, and boost his stack considerably. Kapalas ended the day with 1,398,000, just ahead of MacPhee who collected 1,313,000.

And for a little tournament tip, Remko Rinkema chats with Rhys Jones about how one can better stay focused during a poker tournament:

Day 4 Seat Draw

Table	Seat	Player	Country	Chips
8	1	Adrien Guyon	France	344,000
8	2	Joseph El Khoury	Lebanon	362,000
8	3	Kevin MacPhee	USA	1,313,000
8	4	Aliaksei Boika	Belarus	85,000
8	5	Olivier Piechaczyk	France	1,099,000
8	7	Jean Wang	France	65,000
8	8	Sergio Aido	Spain	341,000

9	1	Ognjen Sekularac	Serbia	392,000
9	3	Guillaume Darcourt	France	801,000
9	4	Sameer Khurana	Poland	275,000
9	5	David Jaoui	France	391,000
9	6	Dany Parlafes	Romania	1,220,000
9	7	Carlo Savinelli	Italy	546,000
9	8	Alex Tikhoniouk	Ireland	303,000

10	1	Lucas Monnier	France	124,000
10	2	Benjamin Pollak	France	519,000
10	3	Evangelos Tsairis	Greece	585,000
10	5	Benjamin Buhr	France	333,000
10	6	David van den Berg	Netherlands	426,000
10	7	Massou Cohen	France	156,000
10	8	Ruben Visser	Netherlands	569,000

11	2	Miroslav Alilovic	France	654,000
11	3	Omar Dahmani	France	182,000
11	4	Jeremy Ciup	France	369,000
11	5	Matas Cimbolas	Lithuania	617,000
11	6	Daniel Carlsson	Sweden	735,000
11	7	Andrius Bielskis	Lithuania	425,000
11	8	Saoud Mnahi	Kuwait	122,000

12	1	Joseph Carlino	France	372,000
12	2	Bertrand Grospellier	France	120,000
12	3	Matthieu Lamagnere	France	155,000
12	4	Julien Duveau	France	215,000
12	5	Milan Tomasz Rabsz	Poland	1,005,000
12	6	Ognyan Dimov	Bulgaria	677,000
12	7	Georgios Kapalas	Greece	1,398,000
12	8	Lionel Rozenberg	France	486,000