The Brat is back while it’s a disaster for Devilfish
Day three at the PartyPoker.com Premier League III saw a reverse of the previous day’s results as both Peter Eastgate and Phil Hellmuth picked up the maximum 10 points from their heats. Eastgate completely dominated his heat while Hellmuth finally found some form to bring him back into contention for Sunday’s final table.
Heat five
This was a hugely eventful heat. All the previous matches had seen very few early eliminations but this game was different and it very quickly become a heads-up battle between JC Tran and Eastgate. The 2008 WSOP Main Event champion completely ran over the field and looked to be home and dry. At this stage the blinds were only at 2k-4k and Eastgate sat with 541,000 to Tran’s 59,000; a very different scenario to when the pair met on day one when the chip counts going into the heads-up stage were more level.
Remarkably, as a 9-1 underdog, Tran fought back to hold the chip lead. Eastgate, however, eventually got his revenge for his day one defeat, pushing all-in with K-3 and was called by Tran with A-7. A king on the flop was enough to seal the deal for the $9 million Dane.
With six points from the heat, however, JC is the man to beat. He holds a very comfortable lead at the top of the table and looks set to qualify for the deep-stacked final table on Sunday. In this heat, Annette Obrestad got the bagel, Juha Helppi took two points, Nenad Medic left with three points and Vicky Coren secured four points.
Heat six
Heat six was the noisiest yet, boasting the line-up of Hellmuth, Tony G, Devilfish, Roland De Wolfe, Tom Dwan and Andy Black. By the time shuffle and deal was called the players were at each others throats with an apparent competition on who could turn up the latest.
The Devilfish’s dreadful luck in the Premier League continued as he busted with no points. Unsurprisingly, the instigator of his downfall was Dwan, whose bet frequency throughout the whole tournament so far has been way above that of any other player. Dwan raised to 10k with Q-7 off-suit, Devilfish called with K-Q off-suit. The flop came 7-7-K with a Q on the river and all the money went in. The chances of the ‘Fish getting a run together now look slim as he has only three points.
‘Durrr’ busted Tony G next for two points and Black for three points but then went himself in third place after pushing it just a little too much against Hellmuth. This left Hellmuth and De Wolfe heads-up with Roland leading 319,000 to 281,000.
After days where it seemed that the ‘Poker Brat’ was getting outgunned by the newcomers he showed great form with some majestic calls and laydowns. Hellmuth chipped away at De Wolfe but was the subject of good fortune in the hand that gave him his eventual victory. Roland re-raised all-in with A-Q off-suit and Phil called with Kc10c. It was looking great for Roland until a King came on the river to secure Hellmuth 10 points.
PartyPoker.com Premier League III standings after day three:
26 points – JC Tran
16 – Peter Eastgate
14 – Juha Helppi
14 – Tony G
14 – Vicky Coren
13 – Phil Hellmuth
12 – Tom Dwan
12 – Roland De Wolfe
10 – Annette Obrestad
10 – Andy Black
6 – Nenad Medic
3 – Devilfish
Today’s line-ups:
Heat seven
Phil Hellmuth
Roland De Wolfe
Tony G
JC Tran
Tom Dwan
Nenad Medic
Heat eight
Devilfish
Andy Black
Peter Eastgate
Juha Helppi
Annette Obrestad
Vicky Coren
You can follow the PartyPoker.com Premier League III action live and analyse the hands at MatchroomPoker.com.
