Chauskin leading the wayEvery so often at one of PokerStars’ festivals you get a day in a Main Event where the stars align so that the action is played at a crazy pace and, if it happens, it’s normally on the penultimate day. Today was one of those days. Thirty players returned with the aim of making the final table of eight and it took just four-and-half levels to get there.

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After the dust settled, Belarussian player Natan Chauskin ended the the day as massive chip leader with 9,835,000. He was already in pole position but firmed up his lead by eliminating Franco Arlotta in ninth place in an aces versus kings cooler.

This is how the final eight will line up tomorrow:

A player busted roughly every twelve minutes today. The first two to go, in the opening minutes, were Ben Richardson and Russell Thomas. The latter staged a remarkable comeback on Day 2 when he might’ve expected to have gone early; today he would’ve expected to last longer than he did. His pocket eights faired badly against Klaus Gortz on a seven high flop though.

Watch out for Brammer tomorrowThe eliminations continued at a frantic pace and it seemed as if most players were contagious to some sort of bustout disease, one that caused a player to bust if they were all in at any point. One player who made sure he was vaccinated this morning was Chris Brammer. The (mainly) online star doubled three times when all in, once when he was behind, twice when he got his chips in good. Entering tomorrow’s final table second in chips and with position on the chip leader, means he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

There were a number of three-way all ins as well today. The last of which saw Govert Metaal – the short stack at the final table – get lucky to triple up with the worst hand. His ace-eight beat Elias Moukawem’s ace-king and Pierre Chambon’s ace-queen. Chambon works for PokerStars in the Malta office and was eliminated in 18th place.

Dion was happy with his deep runYann Dion was another player, like Thomas, who made an improbable comeback yesterday. He was down to two big blinds around the bubble but came all the way back to make Day 3. He never got anything going today but managed to ladder to 14th just by virtue of players busting around him. Day 1A and 2 chip leader Alessio Peciarolo busted three places after him when he flopped the wrong end of the straight. Chauskin held the better end and scooped a huge pot that catapulted him into a lead he would never relinquish.

Not Peciarolo’s day todayTomorrow’s final table starts at 12:30pm but, as it’s being streamed live in Italian (only) on PokerStars.tv our coverage will coincide will the delay, so will start at 1:30pm. Meanwhile, who don’t you read back over today’s frantic action?

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Updates provided by Marc Convey, with photos coming from René Velli and Tomáš Stacha.

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