Those taking part in the final leg of the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) seventh season stood and watched earlier this week as a mere child took the lead. Yesterday showed that they’d had enough of a young upstart taking away their thunder and Ole-Kristian Nergard found this out the hard way.
The former chip leader on both day 1b and 2 was looking good. That was before current chip leader Eugene Yanayt got wind of what was going on. Minutes later, Nergard found himself down a million chips and thinking about what might have been. At least he still has his Tin Tin-esque good looks and a lot more poker playing years on his side. 23rd place and a chip count of 105,000 is currently where he sits.
American Yanayt, complete with shiny EPT 7 T shirt, finished the day with 2,374,000 chips and the only player in the field to top the 2 million mark. Those who had money on there being a double EPT winner this season would do well to pipe down. Ben Wilnofsky and Lucien Cohen were both eliminated and leave a field that is now down to the final 24 players. Team Pro Juan Maceiras and Pedro Pellicer are what remains of the Spanish contingent, the former in with a real chance of taking home the top prize.
The top eight in the chip count are as follows:
Eugene Yanayt, USA, 2,374,000
Torsten Brinkmann, Germany, 1,959,000
Simon Higgins, UK, 1,705,000
Juan Maceiras, Spain, 1,308,000
Ivan Freitez, Venezuela, 1,279,000
Pedro Pellicer, Spain, 1,216,000
Domantas Klimciauskas, Lithuania, 1,198,000
Gerardo Godinez, Mexico, 1,009,000.
