Wrap it Up
Day 3 of the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship has run up against the hard-stop time, and play has been suspended until Thursday afternoon.
From a starting field of 202 players, just 22 returned to the felt today for the push to the finish. Or as close to a finish as ten levels would allow. Fabrizio Gonzalez and Eric Buchman were 1st/2nd in chips after Day 1, and they finally fell today in 19th and 21st places, respectively. Buchman was particularly short on chips at the dawn of Day 2, and Mikael Thuritz took the rest of his chips during the course of his march to the final table. Freddy Deeb fell in the middle of those two in 20th place, and Shaun Deeb (18th place), Mike Sexton (15th), Alessio Isaia (12th), and Kirill Gerasimov (11th) all joined them on the rail in short order.
With nine players left, the table was moved over to the primary featured table to play it out under the bright lights of the UFO-esque stage. Josh Arieh was one of the favorites to go deep in this event, but his volatile day came to an end in ninth place. Thuritz bowed out in eighth, and Jason Steinberg fell shortly thereafter in seventh. Sixth place went to Guillaume Rivet, the start-of-day chip leader riding his stack all the way to the bank for a paycheck of more than $92,000. Mack Lee dropped off the table in fifth place a good while later, and the final four battled it out in a series of huge pots as the blinds and limits grew prohibitive. Richard Ashby had been the commanding chip leader not too long prior, and he continued to massage that lead as the night wore on. Eventually, though, the tides turned, and in an impressively short period of time, he was whittled out of all those chips and down to the felt in fourth place.
That left George Lind, Viacheslav Zhukov, and Steve Billirakis in a three-way for the title, and they got about 45 minutes of poker in before play was called for the night. With eyes tired from the endless string of split pots, the three gentlemen seemed relieved to be heading off to catch a few winks.
So that's all for tonight. Our final three players will return to the stage at 3:00 P.M. tomorrow, and Viacheslav Zhukov will have some work to do to chase down the two frontrunners. We're just two knockouts away from handing out another bracelet, but that will have to wait for another day. Or, later today, in actuality.
Until tomorrow then, all that's left is good night. Good morning.