Friday, 29th March 2024 14:58
Home / Uncategorized / LAPT8 Bahamas: The champs have chips; Danchev, Hall strong with 24 left

Yesterday it was Dominik Panka catching our eye, the returning PCA Main Event champion an obvious attention-getter thanks to his major triumph in this same location just a year ago. We noted how other former PCA Main Event champs were in the field as well, and how a couple of them had continued to survive as the field shrunk even further this evening.

Now we’re looking at those two like we were not that long ago in those Main Events — as front-runners.

2011 PCA Main Event winner Galen Hall was leading the tournament earlier around the time the money bubble burst, but slipped back to the pack thereafter. Now he’s back up over 850,000, comfortably ahead of the average with 24 players remaining.

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Galen Hall

But the clear leader now is the other player with PCA Main Event hardware in his trophy case, 2013 winner Dimitar Danchev who is now pushing the 2 million-chip mark.

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Dimitar Danchev

Flopping a set with fours versus an opponent’s pocket queens was a helpful hand for the Bulgarian amid his recent rise up the leaderboard, with the chips continuing to flow his way without cessation thereafter.

Meanwhile we’ve lost another 11 players as play reached the end of Level 20.

Antonio Fernandez of Peru (35th), Poland’s Dzmitry Urbonovich (34th), and the Frenchman Jacques Der Megreditchian (33rd) were successively ousted shortly after our last post, each earning $7,980.

In that report we’d noted how Paul Volpe appeared to have the momentum, and indeed he’d add more to his stack soon afterwards. But a couple of sour hands led to a rapid exit in 32nd for “paulgees81” — also worth $7,980 — as he explained to his followers afterwards:

The Russian Alex Bilokur fell next in 31st ($9,040). Benjamin Heath of the U.K. fell in 30th ($9,040). Then start-of-day chip leader Mukul Pahuja lost his stack as well to see his LAPT Bahamas Main Event run stopped in 29th ($9,040).

Mark De Faria (28th, $9,040), Arie Miller (27th, $10,500), Claas Segebrecht (26th, $10,500), and Zevola Marco (25th, $10,500) followed them to the rail, and so they’re down to three tables heading to the break.

Photography from LAPT8 Bahamas by Carlos Monti. Click here for live updates in Spanish, and here for live updates in Portuguese.

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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