There were 32 players left in the PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague event when Day 3 kicked off, and it took little time to cut that field down to the final nine. Nicky Goodall started things off with a bang, busting out on the first hand of the day.
Goodall got all his chips in preflop after Juha Lauttamus raised. Nedzib Suman re-raised all in, and Lauttamus folded. Goodall’s 
was drawing thin against Suman’s 
, and when the board showed 
, Goodall was gone.
Lauttamus found a better time to get all his chips in the middle later when he got all in in a three-way pot with Tommy Pavlicek and Mikael Norinder. Pavlicek and Lauttamus went all in on the turn with chip leader Norinder as the board read 
, and the players revealed -
Norinder – 
for trip nines
Pavlicek – 
for a full house
Lauttamus – 
for flopped straight flush
With both his opponents drawing dead, Lauttamus sent Pavlicek to the rail and took over the chip lead from Norinder, if only for a little while.
Jose Navarro started day 3 as the chip leader, but watched his fortunes turn in one big hand with Kristian Kjondal. Novarro went all in over the top of Kjondal with 
and Kjondal made the call with 
. The 
on the river sent Navarro to the rail and set up a redraw for the final two tables. Adrian Koy busted in 16th place before the redraw was complete, leaving one table short-handed to begin.
Table 1
Mikael Norinder 320,000
Cyril Bensoussan 110,000
Markus Gosler 950,000
Gino Alacqua 155,000
Juha Lauttamus 430,000
Mike McMcdonald 160,000
Nikolas Laikos 226,000
Table 2
Johannes Strassmann 155,000
Christer Johansson 150,000
Nedvib Suman 390,000
Sebastian Kink 115,000
Dag Palovic 1,000,000
Kristian Kjondal 650,000
Arnaud Mattern 255,000
Thierry Labat 400,000
Mikael Norinder was bent on reclaiming his chip lead as the field narrowed towards the final table, and he did so at the expense of his opponents. Cyril Bensoussian was the first to fall to Norinder, losing to rivered four-flush, and then Mike McDonald saw his tournament come to an end when Norinder turned a flush on him a few hands later. Thierry Labat was one of the few final players not to go bust to Norinder, when Kristian Kjondal’s Aces took him out in 13th.
It was Norinder again, on the right side of the elimination, when he busted Nikolas Liakos with pocket fives against Liakos’ 
. Sebastian Zink ran pocket nines into Arnaud Mattern’s pocket Kings to fall in 11th place, and the final table bubble was upon them. There was no surprise when the final elimination of the day came at the hands of Mikael Norinder, who out flopped Christer Johansson with 
on a board of 
. Johansson held 
and was drawing to one out after the flop. It didn’t come and he was busted in 10th place.
Mikael Norinder finished Day 3 with a slight chip lead, and the final table seating assignments and chip stacks looked like this -
Seat 1 - Juha Lauttamus: 567,000
Seat 2 - Kristian Kjondal: 740,000
Seat 3 - Gino Alacqua 660,000
Seat 4 - Markus Golser: 352,000
Seat 5 - Mikael Norinder: 1,036,000
Seat 6 - Nedzib Suman 216,000
Seat 7 - Dag Palovic: 759,000
Seat 8 - Johannes Strassmann: 245,000
Seat 9 - Arnaud Mattern: 980,000
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