Ami Leads Eureka Prague Finale
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Whilst Dan Smith was claiming another major title across the Atlantic in Las Vegas, the final few in this year's record-breaking Eureka Prague Main Event were bagging up their chips ahead of today's finale.
Having made their way past more than 1,300 players over the past four days, the remaining eight players all got a well-earned rest last night after the elimination of Sergey Baranov brought the penultimate session to a close.
At the start of the session there were 43 hopefuls in their seat ready to play, but by the time the session had worn on and the likes of David Lappin (42nd - €3,850), Mattias De Meulder (28th - €5,250), Kevin MacPhee (27th - €6,100) and Chris Moorman (12th - €12,550) had hit the rail, just eight remained.
Leading the way at the close of play was Ami Barer with 7,280,000 chips but he'll have his work cut out when play commences as Britain's Stephen Chidwick (4,955,000), Czech-based Irishman Mark Dalimore (2,170,000) and PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki (1,340,000) are all still in contention.
However, with $5.5 million in online winnings to his virtual name 'UhhMee', it's likely Barer will keep a cool head as his fights for today's €226,400 top prize.
Here's how today's final table will start:
Seat 1: Jaroslav Peter, Czech Republic, 3,995,000
Seat 2: Marcin Horecki, Poland, Team PokerStars Pro, 1,340,000
Seat 3: Johannes Tiefenbrunner, Germany, 935,000
Seat 4: Dmitri Holdeew, Germany, 4,720,000
Seat 5: Ami Barer, Canada, PokerStars qualifier, 7,280,000
Seat 6: Milan Simko, Czech Republic, PokerStars qualifier, 695,000
Seat 7: Stephen Chidwick, UK, PokerStars player, 4,955,000
Seat 8: Mark Dalimore, UK, PokerStars player, 2,170,000