Laurila Leads Final 9 at End of Day 3 of the 888poker LIVE Barcelona Main Event
Finn Tero Laurila will go into Day 4 with a big chip lead, having bagged 3,020,000 from his starting stack of 165,000 at the start of the day. Laurila will be in pole position to take home the �66,000 first place prize as he will come into tomorrow's play with over 100 big blinds here at the beautiful Casino Barcelona at the �1,100 888poker LIVE Barcelona Main Event.
However, the tournament's story so far has been German Nils Lechner, having qualified for this event from an $11 online satellite on 888poker.com. It is one of the first times the 23-year-old, who predominately plays online, has played a live poker tournament. Lechner came into the day as a top 10 stack and managed to survive to secure a minimum payday of �7,120.
Chip Counts After Day 3
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tero Laurila | Finland | 3,020,000 | 121 |
| 2 | Albert Grane | Spain | 1,970,000 | 79 |
| 3 | Pekka Ikonen | Finland | 1,415,000 | 57 |
| 4 | Nuno Duarte | Portugal | 1,065,000 | 43 |
| 5 | Nils Lechner | Germany | 1,015,000 | 41 |
| 6 | Tullio Bertoli | Venezuela | 945,000 | 38 |
| 7 | Lin Xia | Italy | 765,000 | 31 |
| 8 | Juri Mereu | Italy | 500,000 | 20 |
| 9 | Sergi Alonso | Spain | 370,000 | 15 |
A total of 27 players came into Day 3, but all eyes were on chess streamer Alexandra Botez, who came into the day in the middle of the pack. Botez was on the feature table throughout the day and managed to survive as the field thinned. Botez found a crucial double-up when she got her chips in good with ace-king against Marius Stancescu's king-queen. However, Botez didn't eliminate Stancescu the easy way as the flop gave Stancescu top pair only for Botez to river a straight when she picked up a Broadway draw on the turn.
Botez was eventually eliminated when she got her final chips in the middle with ace-deuce against Lin Xia's ace-queen to be eliminated in 16th place for �5,000.
Start of day chip leader and Catalan local Albert Grane maintained his chip stack throughout the day and was helped when Giacomo Raddi picked an ill time to four-bet bluff. Grane had three-bet in the cutoff before Raddi four-bet all in with queen-five but was eliminated when Grane snap-called with ace-king. Raddi didn't get there and was eliminated in 12th place for �6,040.
Gran's momentum would continue when Juan Jose Garcia (11th- �6,040) moved all in with ace-eight only to run into the aces of Gran which elevated Gran up the leaderboard behind Laurila.
The final table bubble lasted a while with hand-for-hand in place. Still, it was Day 1b chip leader Kristian Larsson who would eventually fall as he three-bet shoved his pocket sevens only to lose against Nuno Duarte's pocket nines.
Action will resume at 3:30 p.m. local time, with action being streamed on 888poker's Twitch channel on a 15-minute delay. Blinds will continue at 10,000/25,000 with a 25,000 big blind ante. Stay tuned to PokerNews for updates from the final table until a champion is crowned.