2018 PokerStars EPT Prague

Day 3 of 2018 PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague €5,300 Main Event wrapped up with only 44 players remaining out of the field of 1,174, and a hero of poker Twitch finds himself squarely in the hunt for the title.

Canadian online grinder Parker Talbot sits in fourth place after bagging 1,690,000 following five 90-minute levels of Day 3 play. Talbot is known as "tonkaaaap" to his legions of followers — has nearly 100,000 — on Twitch, where he streams online tournament for typically five days per week.

On the live felt, Talbot makes himself fairly scarce in the North American scene but he has still racked up about $440,000 in cashes.

Talbot's day got off to a dream start. After already coming in with a sizable chip stack, he was dealt aces early on and won a huge pot where he got paid off for large turn and river bets to move into the chip lead with 1.2 million at 2,500/5,000/5,000.

Still, Talbot had a tough seat with nosebleed participant Markus Durnegger on his left. Nonetheless, Talbot made it work a bit later when he got Durnegger for a huge pot by inducing a massive turn bet of 190,000, which Talbot called with pocket eights on a seven-high board. Durnegger opted to give it up on the river when checked to, moving Talbot past 1.5 million with plenty of time still remaining in the day.

When the dust eventually settled at day's end, Durnegger would not be among those bagging.

Leading the way among the remaining 44 players is Konstantin Farber, although only narrowly over Evangelos Bechrakis with 2 million to 1,941,000. The latter was also at Talbot's table throughout the entire day, and he was involved in plenty of huge pots.

Most notably, Bechrakis all but eliminated Patrik Antonius on a savage cooler that saw both players river flushes in a three-bet pot. Antonius had also flopped top pair of queens, and he raised the river for value only to get called by Bechrakis' king-high flush.

Left with crumbs, Antonius didn't survive much longer. He was joined at the payout desk by Juha Helppi, Jason Wheeler, Timothy Adams and Sylvain Loosli, among others.

Among those still in the hunt are former EPT champs Anton Wigg and Andrey Pateychuk, as well as high-stakes online grinder Liviu Ignat.

Those players and the rest still remaining will hit the felt once again at noon local time on Sunday starting with Level 21 (8,000/16,000/16,000). The plan will be to play down to 16 players. Come back to PokerNews to see who those 16 will be, starting at noon.

Hiroyuki Noda raised to 30,000 from under the gun and Xixiang Luo three-bet to 75,000 from the button which Noda called.

The flop came , Noda check-shoved when Luo made the continuation-bet and Luo called.

Hiroyuki Noda:
Xixiang Luo:

The rest of the board was completed with the on the turn and the on the river to eliminate Noda in the last hand of the night.

Kent Roed raised to 28,000 from the cutoff and Scott Margereson shoved for 320,000 on the button. Action folded back to Roed who called.

Scott Margereson:
Kent Roed:

The board ran out for Roed to hit trip kings by the end the board was completed to get rid of Margereson in 46th place for €17,540.

Just three more hands at each table and play will wrap for the night.

Konstantin Farber checked in the small blind and called 75,000 on from big blind Andriy Mertengren. The river was a and Farber checked and quickly called 91,000. Mertengren indicated the call was a winner but Farber wanted to see, so Mertengren showed and mucked when Farber rolled over .

Action folded to Scott Margereson in the small blind and he was considering his options. Parker Talbot was sitting in the big blind.

"There's no shame in giving up," Talbot said jokingly to Margereson.

Margereson completed his small blind and Talbot opted to check.

The flop came , Margereson bet 12,000 and Talbot called.

They both checked through the to see the complete the board on the river. Margereson now bet and Talbot snap-folded. While Margereson pushed his cards over the line and started raking the pot in, Talbot got hold of Margereson's cards as he wanted to see one of them.

"Not that one..." Margereson said.

So Talbot switched to the other card and opened the .

Paul Michaelis opened to 24,000 early and got action from small blind Serhii Holodiuk. Holodiuk check-called 17,000 on the flop and 38,000 on the turn as rolled off the deck. They both checked the river and Holodiuk opened .

Michaelis growled and said he was one smaller, showing the as he mucked.