Aido Takes Big Lead into Final Day of Prague High Roller
The PokerStars Championship Prague €10,300 High Roller is down to its final 16 competitors, and everyone's looking way up at Spanish super high roller Sergio Aido. Aido bagged 2,147,000 to give himself a wide lead over second-place Danny Tang (1,593,000).
The Spaniard has been one of the more successful players on the nosebleed circuit this year, totaling over $3 million in cashes across all of his tournaments. The only player north of 100 big blinds, he's certainly positioned himself as well as possible after the long Day 2 grind that lasted about 12 hours.
Christopher Kruk was the player looking most dominant for much of the day as he racked up an absurdly large stack with crushing play in the early levels. However, Aido victimized him in the penultimate level, flopping bottom set of eights in a three-bet pot and barreling down. Kruk called a river shove with king-queen on the board that contained two aces, a king and a queen.
Tang also chipped up courtesy of a set against Kruk, getting a huge river bet paid off after playing top set in a tricky fashion with a flop check-raise and a turn check.
Despite the devastating series of losses, Kruk still maintains a pulse, going into the final day of play as the shortest stack with a little under 12 big blinds.
Other players of note in the final 16 include Hossein Ensan, JC Alvarado and David Peters.
Ensan won the EPT Prague Main Event in this very venue back in 2015 for €754,510. This wouldn't be quite as handsome a prize — first place is €498,000 — but Ensan and his fellow Day 2 survivors certainly wouldn't sneeze at pocketing half a million euro.
Pocket nines proved to be Ensan's lucky hand, as he put a sick beat on PokerStars Team Pro Jake Cody when each player flopped a set but Ensan turned quads to beat Cody's queens full. Ensan then flopped another set of nines against the aces of Antoine Saout to bust him in the money.
Some other players cashing among the 39 paid spots were Anton Wigg, Anthony Zinno, Ryan Riess, and Sam Greenwood.
Day 3 play commences with just under seven minutes remaining in Level 16 (8,000/16,000/2,000) as the players bagged up at the two-table redraw. They'll play down to a winner who will claim the aforementioned prize, and you can find all the updates here on PokerNews.
and saw Tang continuation bet for 29,000. Chalot check shoved for about 270,000 and Tang called.
on the turn but the 
on the river wasn't one of the cards he was looking for and he exited in 18th place. The remaining 17 players are guaranteed €30,500 from here on out.
flop, 215,000 on the 
turn, and (after using a time bank first) all in for 453,000 on the 
river.
for a full house, Kruk mucked 
.
on the turn was still good for him. The 
, Greenwood tabled 
. The river 
was good for Kruk, Greenwood eliminated.
was inconsequential and Palumbo wished the table good luck before making his exit.
and Heath almost tripled, busting Vieira and leaving Greenwood short.
