25 Players Remain in EPT Tallinn

Just 25 players remain at the PokerStars European Poker Tour: Tallinn event, fighting for the €400,000 prize which will go to the ultimate winner. All remaining players are in the money. Most of the 420-player field has been eliminated over the first three days of play, but there’s plenty of excitement still ahead for the remaining players.

The current chip leader is Perica Bukara of Serbia, who currently holds 1,326,000 chips. Close behind him are Russia’s Konstantin Bilyaver and Arnaud Mattern of France, who are both over 1 million in chips. Mattern is a particularly notable leader, as he won EPT Prague in 2007.

Also of note, Russian player Ivan Demidov is currently in 5^th place, with 729,000 in chips. If you remember that name, it’s because Demidov had an exciting summer of 2008. In that year’s World Series of Poker Main Event, Demidov finished second to Peter Eastgate. He then came back in September to finish 3^rd at the World Series of Poker – Europe in London. Combined with some other live cashes, he has won nearly $6.7 million in tournament play.

As for the current chip leader, Bukara is a relative unknown, with just over $45,000 in live cashes for his career. However, Bukara has been among the leaders throughout the tournament, having also held the chip lead at the end of day 1B.

With many interesting contenders clogging up the leader board, it should be an exciting race to the finish in Tallinn (the capital of Estonia).

There’s also some other action going on simultaneously with the main event. There’s also a €10,000 buy-in “High Roller” event, along with a heads up tournament. The heads up tournament featured a big name first round matchup, when Vanessa Selbst took down Annette Obrestad in a clash of two notable female professionals. Selbst is still alive in the tournament, having reached the semifinals of the tournament. First prize in the event – which had a field of 31 players – is €41,000.