Friday, 29th March 2024 13:18
Home / Uncategorized / EPT Loutraki: Big name leader as Charalampos Kapernopoylos heads the field
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It’s taken four days for us to be able to lead a day-end wrap with the following phrase, but after another six levels of EPT action in the Club Hotel Loutraki today: Greece is the word.

With 38 players remaining, from a starting field of 336, the home favourite Charalampos Kapernopoylos is leading the way. He knocked out his early table-mate Johnny Lodden, sent David Vamplew and then Kevin MacPhee packing late in the day, and bagged up 892,500 chips at the close, almost 400,000 more than his nearest challenger.

A doctor by trade, he spent today blithely ignoring the Hippocratic Oath, inflicting maximum injury on anyone who came too close. There aren’t many players who can claim the scalps of two EPT champions and a Team PokerStars Pro in a single day, but Kapernopoylos joins that elite group.

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Charalampos Kapernopoylos: big name, big stack

He is looking very good for what will be his first cash in a major poker tournament – and there’s €347,000 on offer if he can go all the way.

Among those breathing down his neck tomorrow is a third EPT champion, Rupert Elder. Elder has 497,500 after another fine day at the office for the Brit. He is perhaps the most recognisable name remaining in the field, in which a few sharks still lurk.

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Rupert Elder: the lonely life of an EPT champion

The Team PokerStars Pro duo of Jude Ainsworth (233,000) and Toni Judet (255,000) are still alive, as are our two day one leaders, Julian Herold (93,500) and Mario Puccini (495,000).

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Jude Ainsworth: heading to day three

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Julian Herold: all the day-end leaders remain

Other notable stacks include Zimnan Ziyard (437,000), David Elyashar (503,500) and Pim van Riet (492,500). See the chip-count page for all the full counts.

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Zimnan Ziyard: high in the chasing pack

The first order of business today was the race to the money bubble. And before that had even bobbed into view, all of Ana Marquez, Lodden, Roberto Romanello, Joe Elpayaa and Roger Hairebedian (among others) had gone.

The unluckiest man in the room, though, was the young Russian player Roman Makhlin, who had been one of the early leaders on day one. But he got his short stack in on the bubble with pocket kings, only to lose to Christopher Lastiwka’s big slick when an ace flopped. That’s poker.

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Roman Makhlin (standing, in grey) busts on the bubble

After that, it was pretty much entirely the Kapernopoylos show. The biggest name in the room soon became the biggest stack and it simply kept on growing as Vamplew and MacPhee, among others, fell into his artfully laid traps.

Tomorrow we play down from 38 to a final table of eight. Before that, we have the small business of the all-you-can-eat buffet. Why don’t you take a look back through our level-by-level coverage today, and know that even if you read every single word, Rick Dacey will not have finished at the buffet by then.

Levels 13 & 14 updates
Levels 15 & 16 updates
Levels 17 & 18 updates

If this isn’t already all Greek to you, have some of this. Und auf Deutsch.

All that remains is a photo of a trophy and some jewellery…

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A trophy and some jewellery

…and a credit for the photographer. All photos on PokerStars Blog from Loutraki are ©Neil Stoddart.

That’s that. Goodnight.

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