The Scandies and the Americans Chasing Marco Lang

(Photo: Marco Lang)

Good afternoon and welcome to Day Three of the PartyPoker World Poker Tour (WPT) Prague. So far we have waded through four days of poker and unceremoniously dispatched 489 players to the sidelines. 78-players remain and we just need to lose six more players to reach the money. 500+ player fields are tough to get through, but they do generate a lot of cash. $2,129,739 to be exact, and today will be the day that it gets broken down into little pieces and distributed amongst the players.

We have a real Rocky story at the top of the charts with Marco Lang currently leading the field with nearly 700,000 chips. We have dubbed him Clubber Lang due to his propensity to knock people out. The relatively inexperienced player will have to be on his guard though, because there are some mighty heavyweights all in the queue to have a pop at him.

Everyone knew that Elio Fox was a great poker player, but in 2011 he turned that belief into something tangible when he won the WSOPE Main Event in Cannes. Fox had is work cut out late into Day Two when he had to ply his trade with one of the world’s greatest poker players seated to his left in the shape of Mike McDonald. How did Fox deal with that? Why he eliminated him of course; AA>TT in the final level of play to send Timex home. Fox starts the day in second place and we are expecting a good performance from him today.

(Photo: Elio Fox)

There are some pretty impressive Scandinavians flexing their muscles. Jussi Nevalinna has been racking up the victories in the side-events of the major tournaments, but so far the main event success has just been a few places beyond his grasp. Nevalinna is positioned to make yet another deep run lying ninth in chips. There is also a place for his countryman – and WPT Champions Club member – Juha Helppi. The experienced Helppi is positioned towards the lower end of the chip counts, but is capable of grinding his way deeper into this competition.

(Photo: Juha Helppi)

Then you have a rush of fury from Denmark led by the impressive Simon Ravnsbaek. Ravnsbaek has two WPT final table spots on his resume and he starts the day in 11th spot. WPT Champions Club member Morten Christensen, Claus Bek Nielsen and Lars Bonding finish off an impressive foursome that any country would be proud of.

(Photo: Jason Mercier)

Last, but not least, we have the American contingent. The country that contains the best No-Limit Hold’em live tournament players in the world (according the GPI that is). One of the greatest players NEVER to reach a WPT final table is Jason Mercier. The former GPI world number one grinded the short stack for most of Day 1, and 2, until he suddenly started to gain momentum when he took the decision to stop playing HU online games at the same time. Mercier is nicely poised in 22nd spot with 295,000 chips. Kevin MacPhee, Byron Kaverman, Shannon Shorr, Keven Stammen and Ryan Franklin are also in starting field for Day Three.

The action will commence at 13:00 (CET). There was a player’s party last night and if the breakfast area is anything to go by there may be a few quiet people in the field today. Let’s hope most of the players avoided it, because the voyage to the final three tables is going to be long and arduous.