It’s day three at EPT Deauville and as the engineers in front of us wire up the lights and cameras of the television table, we await the action that will decide who sits around it.

We will begin today with 47 players battling through as many levels at it will take until we are down to a final eight. This could take some time, so be prepared for the long haul.

The German PokerStars qualifier, Moritz Kranich, is firmly in the driving seat ahead of today’s play.

Moritz Kranich

Kranich bagged up 517,000 chips last night after a spectacular day three, and that’s 200,000-odd more than his closest challenger, Michel Abecassis, who leads a formidable line of home players seeking to keep this title in France.

His countrymen Arnaud Esquevin, Bruno Haddad, Laurent Polito, Arnaud Vicente and David Daraux join Abecassis in the top eight. Their dominance is only interrupted by Joep van den Bijgaart, the Dutch player, sitting in fourth.

The UK’s David Ulliot is lurking with extreme menace a little further down the leaderboard, where we also find players of some repute from Finland (Mika Paasonen), Poland (Pawel Chimiel), Italy (Alessio Isaia and Andrea Benelli), Portugal (Rui Manuel Teixeira De Sousa) and Austria (Ivo Donev).

David Ulliott

Mika Paasonen

Ivo Donev

In short, it’s the usual mixture of leading lights from across the continent all with their eyes fixed firmly on the €851,400 first prize. Play begins at noon CET, and we will provide level-by-level updates of all the major hands and eliminations as play progresses. The chip count page will have the latest counts, and the winners will find their names on the prizewinners page even before they’ve collected their cash.

You can also follow all this in French, German or Swedish, and over at PokerStars.tv.

Watch EPT Deauville S5: Introduction into Day 3 (English) on PokerStars.tv

Also stay tuned for details of how to watch tomorrow’s final table “as live” with a unique web broadcast.

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