Akenhead in the mix at WPT Venice

[TightEnd]

27 remain, and James is 4th in chips

The overall chip leader is a certain Marcel Bjerkmann who bagged and tagged 436,300 but hot on his heels are the likes of James Akenhead (336,000), Gianluca Trebbi (323,500), Jason Wheeler (348,200) and Andrea Dato (309,900).

$302,000 up top

http://www.worldpokertour.com/Live_Updates/Live.aspx has the remaining players


Also still in, and because the photo is well peng, innit




Only 155 players this year, over 520 last year. Any ideas why this would be?

[tikay]

Mr D Nicholson was in good shape until Level 8, when he ran K-K into A-K, which, I felt, was rather careless of him. It was for a 135,000 Pot @ 250/500. Waste of space, that boy.

Good luck to Mr A, love to see him win it, it's been almost a month since his Sunday Million success, he must be near skinto by now.

[Amatay]

haha Tikay you crack me up. gl to James

[SuuPRlim]

General consensus for the big decline in numbers is that this year instead of 1 3,500eur WPT, they have held two, one was in late november at 3,500euro and then now this one.

Impact of this is that there has been way way fewer satelites and less than 8 weeks after asking people to stump 3 and a half bags up they now asking for another 5 whilst the italian economy isn't exactly booming right now.

It's also coming RIGHT on the back end of Aussie Millions and deuaville which I think has damaged pro attendance quite a bit. I can think of about 15 people who went to d'ville but not to this when in theory there is no reason why they wouldn't be in both.

I've actually really enjoyed the tournaments, not the most efficently run comps ever but overall a great tournament. The general standard of play was miles worse than you'd expect for a 5k with 170players, the 380~ odd that are missing from the previous one are majority satelite winners and pros, so you actually get a shot at a very very "winnable" WPT here in venice

If you're still in that is, which I am not lol gogogogo akenhead (it's a little known fact that his roaring start to 2012 is due to a dream I had where he was incontrol of a lot of snakes that turned into humans)

[NoflopsHomer]

Only 155 players this year, over 520 last year. Any ideas why this would be?

Was a WPT re-entry there like 6 weeks ago which only got 213.

[TightEnd]

Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Venice Grand Prix Main Event has been completed after six 90-minute levels were needed to reduce the 27 starters down to the final table of nine.

When play resumes at 1300 CET on Thursday it will be Simon Ravnsbaek who will be the chip leader, his 795,000 stack nudging him just in front of the chasing pack. Ravnsbaek played aggressive poker throughout the day and despite starting as one of the shorter stacks he thoroughly deserves his place at the top of the chip counts.

This tournament marks the Dane’s second in a World Poker Tour Event, his only other cash on the tour coming in 2011 when he finished third in the WPT Vienna Main Event. Can he go one or two places better here in Venice?

In second place going into Day 4 is Alessandro Longobardi who slowly bled chips all day long before a mini heater right at the death saw his stack swell to 783,000, just 12,000 less than Ravnsbaek. This is his first WPT cash, can he now make it his first WPT win?

Making up the final hand are Andrea Dato (726,000) who finished 4th in the WPT Venice Main Event in December, Jason Wheeler (699,000) who has almost $3,000,000 in online poker tournament winnings, Gianluca Trebbi (474,000), Andrea Carini (430,000), Jeremie Sochet (402,000) and Rinat Bogdanov (201,000).

Day 4 has the potential to be rather short as we will only be playing down to the televised six-handed final table but you never know in this crazy game we all love. When play resumes the players will be seated as follows:

WPT Venice Grand Prix Final Table

Seat 1: Andrea Dato: 726,000
Seat 2: Simon Ravnsbaek: 795,000
Seat 3: Andrea Carini: 430,000
Seat 4: Rinat Bogdanov: 201,000
Seat 5: Gianluca Trebbi: 474,000
Seat 6: Jeremie Sochet: 402,000
Seat 7: Jason Wheeler: 699,000
Seat 8: Alessandro Longobardi: 783,000
Seat 9: Massimo Mosele: 163,000

James Akenhead finished 14th