I don't think even in Wojtek Barzantny's wildest dreams he could've imagined how his week would've turned out when he set out from Kaiserslautern to play UKIPT Online and UKIPT Bristol. Not content with beating UK poker legend Chris Moorman heads-up to win UKIPT Online here in Bristol on Wednesday, he's unceremoniously set about bashing up this tournament too.
And bash is the right word, today we saw him exercise relentless aggression, six-betting all-in at one point and generally using the field as his play thing. The final hand of the day neatly illustrates this. Having called a raise in position with [8d][6d] he flopped top two pair and got Simon Randall to make a massive re-raise all-in with pocket aces. The German's two pair held-up to knock Randall out in ninth. The German's stack of 2,880,000 is more than double his nearest challenger and accounts for 36% of the chips in play.
Start of day chip leader Robert Bull managed to stay near the top of the chip counts throughout the day and with 1,342,000 will start in second place tomorrow. He pulled off a neat trick today, twice getting people to re-raise all-in when he held pocket aces. Both Owen Lock and Ben Young held ace-king and couldn't outdraw his pocket rockets.
The only other player to break the million-chip mark today was Craig Goddard. The Bognor Regis native who now lives in Bristol, eliminated the dangerous Nik Persaud, taking his chips in back to back hands to climb towards the top of the leaderboard.
The boys won't have it all their own way tomorrow as Amanda Sidark has become the first woman to make a UKIPT final table since Sinem Melin finished fifth at UKIPT Brighton Season 2 in July 2011. She'll be sixth in chips with 523,000 when play starts tomorrow and the Swede will be looking to become the first lady ever to win a UKIPT. She's already bettered her best UKIPT finish, 61st at UKIPT Dublin in Season 2.
James Greenwood started the day fourth in chips and that's the position he'll find himself in tomorrow. He had a tough table draw as he had Barzantny to his left for much of the day, but picked his spots carefully and ended the day on 744,000.
He's just a few big blinds ahead of Anthony Forsyth-Forrest (691,000) whilst even the two shortest stacks Jonathan Prince (407,000) and Niall Murray (343,000) will have over 20 big blinds when play starts tomorrow and will be in no rush to have to risk their chips.
Of course to reach the final of eight, we had to lose a number of high profile and talented players along the way. Among the 37 who fell play to the variance stick today were: Joe Roberts (16th), Bambos Xanthos (17th) ,Nik Persaud (19th), Jason Tompkins (22nd), Paul McTaggart (23rd) and Andrew Couldridge (28th). To see a list of everyone who's cashed so far click here.
The final table starts at noon and Wojtek Barzantny goes for a unique UKIPT double. The seat draw and chip counts are as below. To catch up on all of today's frantic action click on the links below. We'll be back to bring you all the raises, re-raises and bluffs as eight plays down to one and someone will take home £90,400.
UKIPT Bristol Final Table
1 - Amanda Sidark, Sweden, 523,000
2 - Robert Bull, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 1,342,000
3 - James Greenwood, United Kingdom, 744,000
4 - Craig Goddard, United Kingdom, 1,039,000
5 - Wojtek Barzantny, Germany, PokerStars Player, 2,880,000
6 - Jonathan Prince, United Kingdom, PokerStars Player, 407,000
7 - Niall Murray, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 343,000
8 - Anthony Forsyth-Forrest, United Kingdom, PokerStars Player, 691,000
We leave you with a scene from last night's party.
All photos are copyright of Mickey May, she's had a rubbish song stuck in her head all day, so she's already angry and you won't like her when she's very angry.