Entering play on Wednesday, only 36 players remained in the 2009 running of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe Main Event. When the smoke clears for the night on the play down day, only nine will remain. PocketFivers Yevgeniy Jovial Gent Timoshenko and Andre aakkari Akkari were two early casualties today, narrowing the field even further. At stake are a healthy £801,603 first place prize and the title of third WSOP Europe Main Event champion. All of the action can be found on PocketFivesLive.com, your home for WSOP Europe coverage of online poker players.
World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event winner Yevgeniy Jovial Gent Timoshenko (pictured at left) was an early casualty of the WSOP Europe feature tournament on Wednesday. Thomas Bichon re-raised Timoshenko pre-flop and the PocketFives.com member shoved all-in for 100,000 more. Bichon called and flipped up pocket sixes, finding himself in a race against Timoshenko’s A-K of hearts. The board bricked out for Timoshenko, who claimed 25th place for £25,000. Timoshenko is fresh off a pair of seven-figure scores. He earned $1.7 million for taking down the PokerStars WCOOP Main Event earlier this month and, in April, won the World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship for $2.1 million.Heading into today, Timoshenko held the 15th largest stack out of the 36 survivors. PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington, who has been on site at the Casino at the Empire in London, commented, "His run lately has been amazing. Even with his colossal amount of recent success, Timoshenko is still humble and quiet and always seems to be happy to be doing well, but in no way is obnoxious about it. Not only is he making a strong case to be considered among the absolute best in the game, but he is also making his mark as one of the good guys in poker."
Also sent packing to begin play on Wednesday in London was Andre aakkari Akkari (pictured at left). A member of Team PokerStars Pro, Akkari was all-in pre-flop with pocket jacks against the A-K of Eric P3achy_keen Liu. The flop contained two aces and the turn was a king, leaving Akkari drawing dead to the river and exiting the WSOP Europe Main Event in 27th place for the same £25,000. He was the runner-up in the WCOOP $10,000 buy-in HORSE event last year for $200,000 and, last November, won the Sunday 500 for $91,000.
Jason treysfull21 Mercier (pictured at right) got the best of Christain CKRUEL Kruel, sending his fellow PocketFives.com member to the rails in 30th place for £21,000. In Kruel’s final hand, his K-Q could not catch up to Mercier’s A-6. Kruel entered the day as one of the tournament’s short stacks. Also ousted was Christian charder Harder, who was seated at the feature table on Wednesday. Harder finished fourth in the WPT Championship, banking $571,000.According to coverage found on the official website of the WSOP, here were the chip stacks of the 17 remaining players in the Main Event in London at the time of writing:
1. Jason treysfull21 Mercier - 1,294,000
2. Saar Wilf - 959,000
3. Barry Shulman - 820,000
4. Markus Ristola - 817,000
5. Keith Hawkins - 715,000
6. Praz Bansi - 659,000
7. Daniel Negreanu - 653,000
8. Eric Liu - 591,000
9. Teddy Sheringham - 567,000
10. James Akenhead - 516,000
11. Thomas Bichon - 515,000
12. Matt Hawrilenko - 503,000
13. Chris Bjorin - 377,000
14. Antoine Saout - 314,000
15. Ram Vaswani - 255,000
16. Doyle Brunson - 208,000
17. Tony Cousineau - 198,000
Saout and Akenhead are looking to repeat Ivan Demidov’s impressive performance from 2008. Last year, Demidov finished third in London and second to Peter Eastgate in Las Vegas. The presence of the two November Nine members has had the poker world buzzing. During the recently-completed WPT Legends of Poker, fellow November Nine member Kevin Schaffel grabbed second to Prahlad Friedman and earned $471,000.
Check out PocketFivesLive.com for the latest coverage of online poker players in the WSOP Europe Main Event.
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