Opening Event Reaches Official Final Table After Ahadpour Bubbles
After a seemingly interminable bubble, the �10,300 Eight-Handed Shot Clock Single Reentry at the 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo?Casino EPT has reached a final table, with Timothy Adams doubling down on his status as Day 1 chip leader to pace the field into the final day.
Behzad Ahadpour was the unfortunate player leaving empty-handed after a long day.
Adams finished Day 2 with 1,006,000 heading to 6,000/12,000/12,000. He's looking at a tough final table with the likes of Stephen Chidwick, Ryan Riess and Rainer Kempe among those looking to topple him from his strong run here in Monaco.
"It was a good day," Adams said. "Things went my away in a lot of spots. The bubble was long, but I was able to get some chips."
Here's the way everything will look when the eight-handed final table gets rolling on Thursday:
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Timothy Adams | Canada | 1,006,000 |
| 2 | Juan Pardo | Spain | 220,000 |
| 3 | Ryan Riess | United States | 702,000 |
| 4 | Vladimir Troyanovskiy | Russia | 158,000 |
| 5 | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | 357,000 |
| 6 | Orpen Kisacikoglu | Turkey | 231,000 |
| 7 | Paul Newey | United Kingdom | 93,000 |
| 8 | Rainer Kempe | Germany | 771,000 |
"There's more poker to be played tomorrow," Adams said. "I'm familiar with everybody here. It's the same old faces."
The field grew from 47 Day 1 entrants up to 71 by the time registration closed after the first two levels of the day. It didn't take long for the field to get whittled down to a few tables, but that's when things slowed down considerably.
When the field reached 10, it meant dual bubbles of both the final table and the money. What ensued was essentially a 10-way stalemate as the bubble lasted more than two hours.
Kempe and Adams were the most active players at one table, butting heads repeatedly and tangling in three-bet pots. Adams bested Kempe in a key pot late when he check-raised and called a three-bet with second pair and a gutter on the flop and hit two pair on the river. No more bets went in but it was still a hefty pot.
At the other table, it appeared Riess got the best of the bubble play as he was able to chip up from being short to the third-place stack at the close of the day.
Short stacks doubled up the few times they were put at risk as hand-for-hand play continued to drag on slowly and laboriously. Finally, Kempe set the stage for the knockout by doubling with aces through Ahadpour's nines. Left with 11 big blinds, Ahadpour shoved over Adams' open and got called instantly as Adams held ace-king. Dominated with ace-seven, Ahadpour binked a seven on the flop but a king hit in no time on the turn to end the grueling bubble grind.
Tournament staff gave instructions to bag with 10 minutes left, but some players protested that they wanted to finish out the day fully. The last 10 minutes wound, and Jan Schwippert wound up going bust when Juan Prado prevailed over him in a battle of short stacks with live cards in the blinds, six-five over queen-ten.
Everyone else is guaranteed at least �26,000 when play resumes at 12:30 p.m. local time here in Monaco, with the winner set to walk away with �201,500. Adams said the players joked that it was a two-bullet satellite to the �100K later in festival.
Come on back to PokerNews' continuing coverage of EPT Monte Carlo to see who will stake claim to the trophy and those two bullets.