The PokerStars Marbella Festival Main Event played out another eight levels today and it was a day that saw new big stacks emerge, former big stacks crumble and one man finish just one off the money as the bubble boy.
Polish PokerStars Qualifer Marcin Barwinski ended the day way ahead of the chasing pack with 825,000. At play's end he had this to say, "It was a day where I hit everything! I qualified online in a player's choice satellite. I'm 22, play professionally and this my first UKIPT."
Team PokerStars Jake Cody had another good day and ended with 354,000. He was on for a top five stack but his ace-king failed to stay ahead of an opponent's ace-queen at the death and he lost 220,000 off his stack. His online teammate Vicente Delgado played with a smile across his face all day, reflective of a positive trend that saw his day close with 586,500, good for second place overnight.
Other players to make Day 3 were: Ken Lennaard (546,000), Sam Grafton (262,000), Galle Garcia Diaz (45,000), Paxti Salinas (67,500), Elias Fernandez (523,000), Christian Bauer (296,000), Neil Raine (280,000), Denis Ursu (373,000), Didier Cicurel (355,000), Jaroslaw Lipien (446,000) and Gareth Hamilton (531,000).
The plan for today was to play eight levels unless the money was reached but it burst as the penultimate level of the day came to a close. The bubble lasted nearly an hour with several double ups during that period. The short stacks had no trouble in staying afloat but for Paul Febers and his healthy stack, it was a different matter entirely.
He held pocket nines in the small blind and four-bet shoved for 40 big blinds. Unfortunately for him, Gonzaga Oliveira held kings in the big blind and snap called the shove. Both players held a club and the flop came [8c][5c][6c] to add a straight flush draw to Febers' outs. They didn't come and short stacks around the room erupted in celebration.
Of course it's awful to bubble but, at the end of the day, his tournament was effectively as successful as defending champion Ludovic Geilich, Adrian Mateos, Leo McClean, Raul Mestre and Nick Wealthall, along with PokerStars' Leo Margets and Dale Philip - all of whom left with nothing.
A cash may be secured but another big day awaits those who made it through as the race for the final table will be on. Everyone's hoping it won't take too long as there's the Player party/BBQ to attend before the England versus Italy match is shown on a big screen.
To catch up on all the day's action please click on the links below. Keep an eye on the widget on the right and the @PokerStarsBlog twitter account for overnight chip counts and seat draw which will be uploaded when they're made available.
Photos copyright of Danny Maxwell and Rene Velli.