It is a fact that the game of poker has a finite number of possibilities. There is no magic, the dealer is not the devil in disguise and the cards that float down from the sky are not miracles sent from Angels in heaven. To try explaining that to the 19 people who did not make it to tomorrows final table would be folly. They are like children who want to believe in Santa Claus except their bad beat stories do not have big bushy beards.
Pascal Lefrancois and Mario Andolfini both have bushy beards and both have a few bad beat stories to tell. The pair clashed when they both had over one million in chips. Lefrancois moved all-in with KK and Andolfini called with AA. At the time Andolfini was a real force at the top and he was terrorising people alongside Dmitry Gromov. A King on the turn sent Lefrancois into jubilation and Andolfini into despair. The giant Italian thumped the table so hard that all the chips bounced a few inches from the felt.
Lefrancois then joined Gromov and Simon Ravnsbaek as the three main threats moving towards the latter part of the day. Not too far behind was Alessio Isaia. The Italian and former WPT Venice winner was heading incredibly for his second final table in a matter of months. Then out of the blue he found himself on the nasty end of an all-in with Simon Ravnsbaek and he joined Maximillian Noll as our table short stack.
Maximillian Noll moved all-in with pocket deuces and ran into the mighty pocket aces of Lefrancois. A third deuce on the flop providing an unlikely double up for Noll. The hand seemed to hurt Isaia more than it hurt Lefrancois and then lightning struck twice in very short succession. Lefrancois and short stack Isaia were in the blinds staring at a flop of
when Isaia moved all-in and Lefrancois called. A six on the river doubled Isaia up and reduced a luckless Lefrancois from main contender to the shortest stack on the table.
It was almost inevitable that Lefrancois’s slide into the abyss would continue and so it did. He moved all-in over a Dmitry Gromov raise holding
and Gromov called with
. The ten arrived on cue at the river and Lefrancois became our final table bubble boy.
So we have our final table set in stone and the person leading the pack is Dmitry Gromov. The final table will start at 13:00 (CET) with live streaming starting at 13:30 (CET). We have something special for you tomorrow. Not only do we have live commentary on the stream coming from Jesse May and Mike Sexton but you will also get to see the players hole-cards “This is the way poker was meant to be watched” as Jesse May said himself in his blog.
Final Table Chip Counts
- Gromov Dmitry 5,325,000
- Ravnsbaek Simon 3,265 000
- Kolosov Maksim 1,870,000
- Adinolfi Mario 1,620,000
- Noll Maximilian 1,360,000
- Isaia Alessio 1,320,000
- Jenisch Markus 980,000
- Stroiescu Valentin 925,000
For a full commentary of day 3 live reports check out the live blog.
WPT Vienna Day 3 picture gallery
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