High Stakes Gambling VIP sites: FPS Monaco: Pablo Gordillo big leader with 7 left for final day

Another long day in the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final has come to a close, and after eight full one-hour levels the 57 players who had survived from the 993-player starting field have now played all of the way down to a final table and then some.

Pablo Gordillo began the official final table with the chip lead -- a point hit with about an hour left to play -- and he had it again at night's end. In fact, the Spaniard's stack of 7,005,000 will put him a little over 3 million clear of anyone else when cards go back in the air for Sunday's final day.

Pablo Gordillo

Those 57 returned with the Frenchman Dean-Henri Taibi leading, and within a couple of hours they were already less 20 players. EPT4 Prague champion Arnaud Mattern (47th) and La Maison Du Bluff star Abou Sy (42nd) among those hitting the rail.

Gordillo had already pushed into the chip lead by then, and would remain at or near the top of the counts for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Meanwhile the pace slowed somewhat, the field shrinking from 37 to 22 over the next two one-hour levels. That stretch saw both the tournament's last woman, Daniela Parotti, and start-of-day-2 chip leader Frederik Treusch being eliminated in 27th and 26th, respectively.

Gilles Silbernagel of France had risen to challenge Gordillo by that point, taking over the chip lead briefly as the field was whittled down further. Freeroll winner Romain Bier went out in 20th, and a little later Amerigo Santoro had his aces cracked by EPT4 London champion Joseph Mouawad to go out in 19th.

Mouawad earned another knockout soon thereafter, taking out Alexandre Rivero in 16th, and enjoyed the chip lead for part of the pre-dinner period. Evangelos Kokkalis (15th) and Guillaume Branellec (14th) next fell, with Alessandro Bardaro (13th) and Charles Vidal (12th) following before those remaining took time out for dinner.

After their return, Julien Valentin unfortunately ran kings into Silbernagel's aces to finish 11th. Florian Decamps finally lost the last of his short stack to Taibi to finish 10th. Then start-of-day-3 leader Taibi fell in ninth in a hand against Gordillo.

The final table in the final hour

That one put Gordillo back in front, and other than a brief period when Silbernagel jumped ahead of him again Gordillo would continue to stay active and accumulate until play concluded. Michael Ferrari would be the only one to fall during that final hour, finishing eighth after his pocket queens failed to hold against Mouawad's ace-queen.

Here's how the stacks look and where they'll be seated to start play tomorrow:

Seat 1: Joseph Mouawad (USA) -- 3,220,000
Seat 2: Gilles Silbernagel (France) -- 3,890,000
Seat 3: Sergio Braga (Brazil) -- 840,000
Seat 4: Pablo Gordillo (Spain) -- 7,005,000
Seat 5: empty
Seat 6: Luca Moschitta (Italy) -- 1,655,000
Seat 7: Manuel Martinez (UK) -- 3,950,000
Seat 8: Sebastian Supper (Germany) -- 3,520,000

The next player out will earn €23,500 while a big prize of €177,000 awaits the winner.

Play resumes at 12:30 p.m. local time tomorrow, with cards-up coverage starting on a one-hour delay at 1:30 p.m. over at EPT Live. Come back then to find out with us who will succeed Yury Nesterenko to become the next France Poker Series Monaco Main Event champion.

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