Kolev, Umarov and Pateychuk Lead the Final 16 into Day 3 of EAPT Grand Final
The penultimate day of the Eurasian Poker Tour (EAPT) $2,200 Grand Final has come to a close here at the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel and Spa in North Cyprus. Only 16 players remain from a field of 1,565 entrants after 27 levels of play across the first two days.
The chip lead changed several times during the last few levels but after the dust had settled Boris Kolev ended the night with the second-largest stack, finishing with 32,900,000 chips worth 55 big blinds. Just ahead of him is chip leader Almas Umarov with 32,800,000 while Andrey Pateychuk rounds out the top three with 26,800,000.
Full Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Almas Umarov | Kazakhstan | 32,800,000 | 55 |
| 2 | Boris Kolev | Bulgaria | 32,400,000 | 54 |
| 3 | Andrey Pateychuk | Russian Federation | 26,800,000 | 45 |
| 4 | Artsiom Lasouski | Belarus | 25,800,000 | 43 |
| 5 | Ueberton Cristian De Aquino | Brazil | 24,100,000 | 40 |
| 6 | Nikola Marcetic | Serbia | 20,300,000 | 34 |
| 7 | Vahid Motaghi | Iran | 18,000,000 | 30 |
| 8 | Dmitrii Levin | Russian Federation | 17,400,000 | 29 |
| 9 | Iurii Brechalov | Russian Federation | 17,000,000 | 28 |
| 10 | Szymon Bala | Poland | 16,200,000 | 27 |
| 11 | Adrian Strobel | Germany | 15,000,000 | 25 |
| 12 | Gabriel Akiki | Lebanon | 14,800,000 | 25 |
| 13 | Christopher Puetz | Germany | 14,000,000 | 23 |
| 14 | Amirreza Roudsari | Iran | 11,900,000 | 20 |
| 15 | Maksim Isaev | Russian Federation | 9,700,000 | 16 |
| 16 | Recep Aydemir | Turkey | 7,900,000 | 13 |
Day 2 Highlights
The day began with 276 survivors from the four Day 1 starting flights. Despite the day starting close to the bubble with 235 players paid, the action was lightning-fast from the start and it would only take one hour from the start of the day for the money bubble to burst. Aliaksandr Hirs and Anton Markov were eliminated nearly simultaneously during hand for hand play and split the min-cash, taking home $1,750 each. From that point on the remaining 234 players were guaranteed at least $3,500 each.
Some notables to fall after the money bubble burst include Tobias Peters, Simeon Spasov, Yuliyan Kolev and Stephen Song.
Roman Novoselov held a commanding chip lead for virtually the entire first half of the day, employing an aggressive style that saw him take many pots without showdown. He finally relinquished the chip lead to Artsiom Lasouski of Belarus late in the night after the latter player made an excellent call with just one pair to take down what was easily the biggest pof of the tournament at that point. Novoselov never truly got his footing back after that hand and would bow out in 21st place not long after, losing the last of his chips to Pateychuk after a dramatic runout that saw the lead change multiple times.
Kolev was one of the smaller stacks with just 20 big blinds at the three-table redraw but from that point on he rapidly accumulated chips. He quickly scored back to back knockouts with the eliminations of Vladislav Fedoseev and Denis Vlasov in 23rd and 22nd place respectively to rapidly ascend from being short-stacked to having one of the top five stacks in the room. He followed up those knockouts by winning a big pot from Lasouski after the latter player missed his draw to seize the chip lead at that time.
Pateychuk briefly took the chip lead in the last level of the night after delivering a nasty cooler to Vlado Banicevic with kings versus Banicevic's ace-king. Pateychuk would lose a bit after that to ultimately finish with the third-largest stack.
Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews as we bring you all the action for the final day of the event, set to start tomorrow May 08 at 12:00 p.m. local time with blinds starting at 300,000/600,000 with a 600,000 big blind ante.