Tristan Clemencon Leads The Final Eight Going Into the Final Day of WPT Malta

Coming into Day Three of the World Poker Tour (WPT) at the Portomaso Casino in Malta, all the talk was about a young blonde Italian girl who goes by the name of Cecilia Pescaglini. Pescaglini had finished Day Two as the chip leader and everyone was interested to see how she would handle the pressure as we reached the critical stage of the tournament. At the end of the day she had entertained everyone once again but she was not the chip leader. That honour went to Tristan Clemencon who finished a million chips ahead of the competition with 2,251,000 of the tiny plastic things.

30 players started the day and only three of them were going to receive a Maltese payday. The first player to be disappointed was Nesrine Kourdourli and she was quickly followed by Phil Hellmuth’s conqueror Andras Fekete. Then it was the intensity of the bubble and the man receiving the unfortunate accolade was none other than Giovanni Rizzo. Rizzo raised on the button and Chris Williamson called in the big blind. The flop was and Williamson had flopped top two pair. He checked, Rizzo moved all-in holding and Williamson called. Once in the money people started to loosen up a bit. The first person to benefit from all of the loose play was Tony G. Tony G had livened up this tournament, and he was soon a force to be reckoned with after eliminating both Jean Marie Vandeborne and the dangerous Justin Bonomo in quick succession. Then no sooner had he earned them, he lost them again in a series of unfortunate circumstances and was eliminated in 25th place.

Cecilia Pescaglini was still the chip leader until the clock struck 19.00 when Marvin Rettenmaier won a huge pot from her after rivering a back door flush. That win took Rettenmaier up to 770,000 chips and the joint chip lead and Pescaglini dropped down to 485,000. The cynics were just about to say “I told you so,” when literally one hour later she was back on top and Rettenmaier had dropped back into the pack. Then came the biggest shift in this tournament after Tristan Clemencon eliminated Marvin Rettenmaier to take the chip lead for the first time. Rettenmaier went with and Clemencon found leaving Rettenmaier with a 16th place finish.

The next elimination created another shift in the chip leaders position and it was that girl again. Cecilia Pescaglini called a three-bet with against Viktors Vorobjovs pockets aces and smashed a flop to move up to 1.4 million. For a long while Pescaglini and Clemencon exchange top spots while Matt Giannetti and Simon Trumper acted as Bridesmaids, then Clemencon’s pocket aces struck again, this time against the pocket kings of the unfortunate Salvatore Bianco. Clemencon was up to 1.6 million and Bianco was out of the door.

Manfred Sierke was the final player to be eliminated and again it was at the hands of Clemencon. That left 8 players and they will all be returning at 13.00 (CET) Saturday where they will play down to the final table and then eventually we will be crowning a champion.

The final table is going to be streamed lived at WPT.com and there will even be commentary from the man himself Phil Hellmuth so don’t miss it.

Seat 1: Cecilia Prescaglini: 1.218,000
Seat 2: Filippo Bianchini: 188,000
Seat 3: Fabien Sartoris: 654,000
Seat 4: Matt Giannetti: 1,309,000
Seat 5: Mats Karlson: 452,000
Seat 6: Simon Trumper: 631,000
Seat 7: Tristan Clemencon: 2.215,000
Seat 8: Christofer Williamsson: 510,000

For the Full Update Read the Day Three Reports Here