PCA 2015 Main Event Down to 57. Ethceverry Leads the Pack, Ronaldo still In

What started as a huge field in the Bahamas is now down to just 57 players. Day 3 of the PCA Main Event saw a number of players visit the rail and put a big dent in the field of some 180 players to start the day. Juan Etcheverry was able to navigate his way through the minefield the best, as he bagged the chiplead with 1.7 million to his name.

Although there are a few big names still in the mix, the real story of yesterday was the Brazilian football legend Ronaldo. Although relatively new to poker, member of the PokerStars Team SportStar survived the day and will be coming back with quite a manageable stack of 512,000 chips.

Other members of the PokerStars Team Pro to made it through include Jason Mercier, who bagged 447,000 and Jonathan Duhamel who was able to survive on a short stack and carry through the stack of 266,000. Our own Laura Cornelius caught up with Jonathan just after the bubble had burst to chat with him about his short stack strategy.

Talking about the bubble, it was an important factor in yesterday’s play, as 119 players (of 180 remaining) were set to leave with some money in the pockets. It took a bit while to find out who would get the unpleasant honor of finishing in 120th, but eventually it was Arne Kern who was looking good to double up with his Ace-King until a brutal river brought one of the remaining Tens to give his opponent a set and send him home with nothing but a bad taste in his mouth.

After that, the departures continued in a standard fashion, as it was a do or die time for many. Daniel ‘KidPoker’ Negreanu busted in 94th in a weird hand that he couldn’t get away from.

Guy raised 99 I went all in with JJ and then the big blind woke up with QQ so that's the end of my main event run. Fun while it lasted :-)

— Daniel Negreanu (RealKidPoker) January 11, 2015

Another member of the Team PokerStars, Liv Boeree went out not long after, and her dream of capturing second EPT title was, once again, postponed. ‘Elky’ and Andre Akkari met pretty much the same fate.

Bust aargh. Lost a lot with AA to 99 and couldn't recover. Ah well #ontothenextone
— Liv Boeree (@Liv_Boeree) January 12, 2015

Back to those who will be playing today apart from Etchverry, Chance Kornuth and Kevin Schulz also have big stacks in a seven-figure territory. However, no matter how many blinds there are in your stack, everybody still in has a one dream and one dream only: capturing the first place and taking home $1.5 million!

Which brings us back to Ronaldo. While the money probably doesn’t mean all that much to him, he would no doubt love to make the final table and prove that he’s got the game. And we will not lie – so would we! How great would it be to have Ronaldo seated at the televised final table of such a huge event?

The play will continue today and they will play through five more levels. Our fantastic team on the spot, Laura, Rikard and Richard, will be bringing you more great interviews and fun shenanigans in the coming days, as we are getting closer to the final table taking place on Wednesday.