Shahar Levi Takes Massive Chip Lead Into The Final Table of Event #3: €1,350 Mini Main Event With 7 Left
Shahar Levi takes commanding chip lead into the final day of Event #3: €1,350 Mini Main Event with seven players out of 766 entries in total making it through. All seven players are guaranteed at least €20,396 but they will have their sights set on that first-place prize of €167,056, the coveted gold WSOP bracelet, and the WSOPE Main Event Ticket worth €10,350.
Levi has cashed five times this summer in Las Vegas and came close to reaching a final table in Event #70: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’Em 6-Handed when he was eliminated in 11th place for $44,771. But he has a huge lead right now going into the final day with almost 40% of all the chips in play in his possession. Levi went into the final two tables fifth in the chip counts but that’s when he went on a rampage.
Levi first took out Moritz Koelsch with a flush, then 6-time bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro with the top two pair he flopped. He also eliminated Rainer Heneka to go onto the final table with almost 100 big blinds. He didn’t let up on the final table either, keeping the pressure on his opponents, raising in almost every hand. He added more than four million to his stack when his raise got three-bet shoved by Gerardo Giammugnani and was called by Andrew Bak. Levi four-bet raised for Bak to get out of the hand. His pocket fours turned into quads to send Giammugnani to the rail in ninth place.
Levi also ensured the day ended around 1 a.m. when he took out Leonid Yanovski with pocket kings. Yanovski had shoved after another Levi-raise while holding ace-eight and got no help. Levi is followed by Leeds’ Andrew Bak with 13,650,000 which is worth 57 big blinds when play resumes. Closing out the podium is Didier Rabl from Switzerland with 11,240,000.
The rest of the final table is completed by Jose Rivas, Vangelis Kaimakamis, Luigi Macaluso, and Markus Jordan. This is how things are looking for the final day:
Final Table Seat Draw
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jose Rivas | Venezuela | 7,060,000 | 29 |
| 3 | Vangelis Kaimakamis | Greece | 6,270,000 | 26 |
| 4 | Andrew Bak | United Kingdom | 13,650,000 | 57 |
| 6 | Luigi Macaluso | France | 5,230,000 | 22 |
| 7 | Didier Rabl | Switzerland | 11,240,000 | 47 |
| 8 | Markus Jordan | Germany | 3,525,000 | 15 |
| 9 | Shahar Levi | Israel | 30,035,000 | 125 |
Start of the day
With 153 players returning to the felt and 115 players getting paid, the bubble approached quite quickly around 90 minutes after the start. Dutchman Zhong Chen’s three-bet shoved with pocket eights was called by Koelsch who held ace-jack. The jack on the flop didn’t help Chen and the ace on the river was the final drop to burst the bubble and send Chen packing without any cash.
The eliminations after that came in rapidly and never really let up. Many bracelet winners and other notable players fell by the wayside, the same was the case for all the Day 1 chip leaders. Day 1c chip leader Ismail Kalkan fell to Rabl with pocket eights. pulkit Goyal, the day 1b chip leader, was eliminated by Heneka who also earned a full double-up through Day 1a chip leader, Aleksandr Merzhvinskii. A few hands later, he took the rest of Merzhvinskii’s stack.
Robert Campbell was eliminated by Asi Moshe but is still ahead in the 2019 WSOP Player of the Year race. Brand-new bracelet winner Renat Bohdanov was at the top of the chip counts for a while but he busted to Kaimakamis with the lower kicker. Bohdanov finished in 16th place for €5,913.
The seven remaining players will return to battle it out for the win at 3 p.m. local time on Sunday, October 20. There are 24 minutes left in Level 30 which features a small blind of 120,000, big blind of 240,000, and a big blind ante of 240,000. A 15-minute break is scheduled after Level 32 and every three levels after. The PokerNews live reporting team will be there from the first bag that is opened until the final all-in has been won and this is what they are playing for:
| Place | Prize (EUR) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | € 167,056* | $184,218 |
| 2 | € 103,216* | $113,819 |
| 3 | € 72,474* | $79,919 |
| 4 | € 51,628* | $56,932 |
| 5 | € 37,321* | $41,155 |
| 6 | € 27,382 | $30,195 |
| 7 | € 20,396 | $22,491 |
* Plus €10,350 WSOPE Main Event Ticket