The TonyBet OFC Championship €10,000 High Roller is set to kick-off in 15 minutes at the Corinthia Hotel at 15:00 CET. Thus far, there are four people registered including Dan Cates, Michael Friedrich, Massimilano "Max" Pescatori, and Isabelle Mercier.
Speaking of Mercier, she might be late to the show as she was busy grinding her way to a win in the €340 buy-in OFC Progressive Pineapple Event. Mercier, who is also a TonyBet Poker Ambassador and discusses Open Face Chinese (OFC) strategy on PokerNews, lived up to her nickname of "No Mercy" when after 12 hours of play outlasted a field of 108 players to win €10,189.
Organizers believe the number of entrants for the High Roller will grow much higher by the time the event kicks off and late registration is completed.
Players will begin the day with 50,000 chips and 100 chips per point. Chip levels per point are scheduled to increase every 45 minutes giving players plenty of time in this deep stacked re-entry event.
About three hours into the tournament, Duc Hanh Tran becomes the first player to be eliminated at the hands of Sergey Rybachenko. Rybachenko is the early chip leader in the event with 120,000 chips. We expect the action to pick up a bit as chip value per points continues to rise.
Last year's OFC Championship High Roller Jennifer Shahade has just been eliminated by Italy's Max Pescatori. It does not appear that Shahade will be re-entering, however, we expect to see her back in action again tomorrow for the two-day OFC Championship Main Event.
With Shahade's exit, the feature table headlines a heads-up battle between Pescatori and Jens Lakemeier.
Isabelle Mercier is the latest victim of the tournament. Yesterday's Progressive Pineapple OFC Championship can finally get some long needed rest after losing to Kostiantyn Tupalo.
Mercier only received two hours rest in between winning in the early hours of the morning before getting ready for the High Roller today. We expect to see Mercier back in action tomorrow in the OFC Championship Main Event.
Just before Isabelle Mercier busted out, Jason Mercier was moved to her table.
Max Pescatori just eliminated Alexandra Usoltseva in seventh place. There are now six players left with five getting paid. Jason Mercier, who bubbled last year's OFC Championship High Roller is in jeopardy of a repeat performance as he has the lowest stack of the six players remaining.
It didn't take long for the bubble to break once hand for hand was declared, as Kostiantyn Tupalo has just been eliminated in sixth place. All remaining players are now guaranteed at least a €30,410 payday.
Players were reminded that they can all agree to call it quits for the day and resume tomorrow. Jason Mercier quickly put an end to that conversation before it began stating, "I will go to bed when I either lose all my chips or win all of the chips."
Mercier shared with PokerNews on one of the breaks that he plans on entering the EPT Super High Roller tomorrow, which we imagine why he won't entertain extending the tournament to a two-day event.
With four players left, we have reached the official final table. One player will be sitting out each hand in the four-max format since there are only enough cards for three players to play.
Maxim Panyak has built a decent chip lead during the past 2 blind levels with the remaining three players all around the same amount in chips.
After losing a hand, Max Pescatori went down to 3,000 chips and was asking the other players for odds on him not being the next player out. Fortunately for him, no-one took him up on it as he was just eliminated in fourth place for €37,000.
The tournament is taking a quick break to adjust the cameras on the final table and to get a chip count of the remaining three players before the level goes up to 6,000 chips per point.
Jason Mercier has just been eliminated in third place for €50,655. The remaining two players, Maxim Panyak and Evgeny Kocherov are over 100 points deep when level goes up to 8,000 chips per point in nine minutes. The tournament director asked the remaining two players if they wished to resume tomorrow after playing for 16 hours, and both players declined.
Mercier reminded us once again on the way out the door that he plans to play in the €50,000 EPT Super High Roller tomorrow, while his girlfriend Natasha Barbour isn't done with OFC yet as she plans on playing in the Main Event tomorrow.
After 16 1/2 hours of play, Maxim Panyak was declared the winner after eliminating Evgeny Kocherov in heads-up play. Panyak collected €110,000 for the victory while Kocherov secured a healthy €76,030 payday for his runner-up performance.
