Martins Adeniya On Top for EPT London Final Table

Poker News / Short-Stacked Shamus / 05 October 2011 / Leave a Comment

Martins Adeniya leads the final eight at EPT London (Photo credit: PokerNews / PokerStars)

A flopped full house on the day's final hand ensured Adeniya would be in front when play resumes on Thursday.

From a starting field of 691 just eight remain at the European Poker Tour London Main Event, with Martins Adeniya of the U.K. the final table chip leader with more than 4.7 million. Adeniya's nearest challenger to start Thursday's finale will be Mattias Bergstrom of Sweden who'll have 3.62 million, with the German Benny Spindler close behind in third with 3.435 million.

Meanwhile, the £20,000 buy-in High Roller event also reached a final table on Wednesday night, where Igor Kurganov of Germany leads a tough group of eight that includes Olivier Busquet and Samuel Trickett. (Details below.)

There were 24 players remaining in the Main Event when play resumed at noon at the Hilton London Metropole with Bergstrom sitting atop the counts. Things got even better for the Swede immediately after scoring a huge hit to Basile Yaiche's stack early on in a hand in which Bergstrom made tens full versus Yaiche's trip kings to push up over 2.8 million while crippling Yaiche.

Yaiche would hang on for a while, watching others fall in the meantime including Viktor's brother Sebastian Blom (24th), Per Hildebrand (23rd), and Fowzi Baroukh (20th). Then it was Yaiche's turn to go in 19th, like the others earning £19,000 for doing so.

Joao Barbosa, winner of the Season 5 EPT Polish Open, went out soon after in 17th (also worth £19,000), and they were down to the final two eight-handed tables.

Over the next three hours the field would shrink from 16 to just nine, over the course of which period Adeniya began to move up in the counts despite getting his Ad-Ah cracked by Kevin Iacofano's Kd-Ks along the way. The last to go before players took a short dinner break were James Mitchell of the U.K. in 11th (£35,000) and the American Jeremy Kottler in 10th (£45,000).

About a half-hour after the final nine had restarted, Adria Balaguer of Spain was ousted in ninth in a tough-luck hand versus the surging Adeniya.

Five players had seen a flop come 7d-7h-Th, at which point betting left just Adeniya and Balaguer in the hand. Balaguer had As-7c for trips with the best kicker, but Adeniya held Tc-Td. The turn and river brought a couple of deuces, and Balaguer was out with a payday of £45,000. That flopped full house added a few more to Adeniya's stack, ensuring he'd be in front when play resumes on Thursday.

Here's a look at the stacks for the final eight:

1. Martins Adeniya - 4,736,000

2. Mattias Bergstrom - 3,620,000

3. Benny Spindler - 3,435,000

4. Andre Klebanov - 2,730,000

5. Kevin Iacofano - 2,685,000

6. Juan Manuel Pastor - 1,915,000
7. Steve O'Dwyer - 1,250,000

8. Miroslav Benes - 370,000

A winner will be determined tomorrow, with £750,000 awaiting the one managing to secure all of the chips.

High Roller news

As mentioned, there was other poker of note being played at EPT London today as the High Roller event played down to a final table as well.

A total of 75 entered this one, 30 of whom made it back for today's Day 2. Only the final eight made the money (officially), meaning those eliminated today -- including Mclean Karr, Jonathan Duhamel, Eugene Katchalov, Isaac Haxton, Luke Schwartz, start-of-Day-2 leader Sam Stein, and November Niner Phil Collins -- all failed to cash.

2010 WSOPE Main Event champ James Bord was technically the event's bubble boy by going out in ninth, but a "save" reordered things a bit to award him £25,000. The first elimination on Thursday will take home £58,400, with a cool £511,300 now awaiting tomorrow's winner.

Here's how the last eight in the High Roller stack up heading into tomorrow:

1. Igor Kurganov - 854,000
2. Robert Akery - 622,000
3. Adrian Bussman - 518,000
4. Olivier Busquet - 471,000
5. Joel Nordkvist - 365,000
6. Samuel Trickett - 354,000
7. Philipp Gruissem - 311,000
8. Michael Tureniec - 268,000

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