Oct 6 2011

Martins Adeniya Leads Final Table in EPT London

written by: Will under News Comments: Comments Off

The fifth day of action at the European Poker Tour London Main Event concluded when Adria Balaguer hit the rail in ninth place. With that, a final table of eight players was set, with each guaranteed a minimum prize of 64k pounds.

The player responsible for knocking out Balaguer was Martins Adeniya, who now leads the chip counts with 4.736 million chips. Mattias Bergstrom is sitting in a distant second place with 3.62 million.

A total of 24 survivors began Day 5, whittled down from an initial starting field of 791 players. Sebastian Blom (brother of Viktor Blom) limped into the day with the smallest chip stack by far, and was quickly eliminated in 24th place. Talented pros including James Mitchell (11th), Benjamin Jenkins (13th), Joao Barbosa (17th), Basile Yaiche (19th) were eliminated throughout the day as well.

Yaiche was initially favored as a potential final table contender, entering Day 5 in 8th place on the chip leaderboard. That quickly changed when he lost an enormous pot to Mattias Bergstrom. His A-K offsuit wasn’t enough to beat Bergstrom’s 10-10 (which resulted in a full house), and he was crippled for the rest of the event. Andries Swart sent him packing a few hands later with K-Q offsuit over pocket 7s.

Barbosa held on longer than any other former EPT champion. He finally hit the rail in level 24, when his 4-4 received no help from the board against Steve O’Dwyer’s K-J.

One of the player’s who will be returning for final table action is Juan Manuel Pastor of Team PokerStars Pro. He holds 1.9 million chips, putting him 6th on the leaderboard. Right behind Mattias Bergstrom is Benny Spindler, a dangerous young player who currently holds over 3.43 million chips. Fighting from the bottom position is Miroslav Benes, who currently holds only 370k chips.

The winner will be decided on Thursday and receive the prestigious title in addition to 750k pounds.

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