It was third time the charm for Andrey Zhigalov in the €1k EPT Championships Triple Stud event. He had previously finished 2nd in the Razz event for €7,500 and third in the Stud High for €4,250 but he managed to beat Rikard Aaberg heads-up in a long but good-natured battle for the title after they chopped the event for €6,800 each. 
Aaberg, who is also regularly seen working at EPT’s as a journalist, had his second cash after finshing fourth in Stud Hi/Lo for €3,190. The battle gradually went against the Swede after a tough Razz phase where at one point Zhigalov had a king as his upcard yet Aaberg drew a worse king. This caused the Swede to remark, “How can you draw a king and I have to bring in?” Zhigalov eventually won after he made trip sevens against Aaberg’s pair of eights with the latter missing a double gutshot. Ratharam Sivagnanam, who came second in the Deepstack Turbo last Friday night for €16,600 and 11th in the PCA this year for $81,760, has won the €1,000 + €1,000 Turbo Bounty for €48,500. The Canadian beat Niklas Astedt (€32,500) with Kilian Kramer finishing in 3rd (€22,900) and Anastasia Tsareva 4th (€18,600). Other notables in the money included Martin Schleich (8th – €5,900), Juha Helppi (11th – €4,200), Cristiano Blanco (21st – €2,470) and Andrey Andreev (22nd – €2,470). 
The €1,500 6-handed event saw a vociferous rail in support of EPT10 Vienna champion Oleksii Khoroshenin though there was much good-natured banter with Michele Dattani (who was being supported by compatriot and EPT champion Joao Barbosa) and a small Bulgarian group who were cheering for Nikolay Tsanev. Eventually the talkative Khoroshenin was eliminated in third place leaving Dattani heads-up against Tsanev. The last hand saw Dattani limp the button with Q♦ 3♦ before raising all in on a 2♣ 9♦ 3♥ flop against Tsanev’s bet. The latter called with K♠ 9♥ but the Portuguese player hit the Q♥ on the turn. Tsanev needed the mighty resuck, which he duly hit on the K♦ river. 
Dattani went out in 2nd place winning €41,330 while Tsanev picked up his biggest ever cash worth €61,240. This beat the Bulgarian’s previous best, a 94th place finish at the EPT10 Grand Final worth €19,200. Manig Loeser (4th – €23,200) and Jack Salter (5th – €18,500) also managed to make the final while other well-known players in the money were Yury Gulyy (15th – €4,140), Dermot Blain (20th – €3,320) and Stephen Chidwick (22nd – €3,040). In the €10,000 High Roller event, Nick Petrangelo will go into the final day as chip leader with 1,660,000. He leads the final 18 players whom also include among their number Marc Etienne McLaughlin (1,008,000), Mike McDonald (765,000) and Steve O’Dwyer (629,000). Team PokerStars Pro George Danzer finished 29th for €23,300 while Walid Bou Habib was the unlucky bubble after he ran K♠ Q♠ into Petrangelo’s A♦ A♣ . Marco Levato (320,000) leads the 64 players remaining in the Malta Megastack, he’s ahead of Elena Stover (315,000) and Daniel Sahlin (269,000). These players will come back tomorrow at midday to play down to a winner. There were 106 players in tonight’s €2k Midnight HyperTurbo, that conveniently given its name, started at midnight. Among those playing were Team PokerStars Pros George Danzer and Liv Boeree, Mike McDonald, Timothy Adams, Martin Finger, Fedor Holz, Dario Sammartino, Dzmitry Urbanovich and Pierre Neuville. To get all the latest news, chip counts and pay outs, don’t forget to download the EPT App on both Android or IOS.
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