Its Time to Crown the First Unibet Open Champion of 2020

Jamie Nixon

After an excruciatingly long bubble on Day 2, Day 3 will start with a few more players than originally planned. The original plan was to end Day 2 when they got nine-handed on the official final table, but the bubble took more than 3 hours to play out, which pushed the schedule back a bit.

Once the bubble finally burst, Tournament Director Glenn Doyle decided to end the day after the end of Level 20, or about 12:45 AM local time. When they reached that point in the structure there were still 12 players left in action.

Ciaran Burke, who has nearly $200,000 in career wins, has already pushed that number over $200K no matter what happens on Day 3, but he comes into the day with the biggest stack of 1.2 million. His previous top score was €55,000 for 3rd in the 2007 Irish Poker Open Main Event, so he’ll be able to set a new record for himself if he can keep the lead till the end and score the €64,110 top prize. Tied with him for first is Alex Hendriks, who also bagged 1,200,000.

It won’t be an easy run for them though. Chomping at their heels is Jamie Nixon who has more than $100,000 in live cashes to his name, and the second stack of 980,000 chips to start Day 3. Unibet Ambassador Espen Uhlen Jorstad is also in the mix, bagging a respectable stack of 785,000 for 5th place. Jason Tompkins will come back to Day 3 with a shorter stack of 295,000, but his nearly $900,000 in live wins proves he’s capable of running that back up again.

The other two players to watch are Niall Farrell and Jack Hardcastle. Both of them secured their seat in Day 2 from the Day 1c turbo flight, but they both came into the day very short stacked. However, they were able to battle it out and build up their stacks to the point that Hardcastle was chip leader for a couple of levels on Day 2, and Farrell maintained a solid stack through the later stages of the day.

The seating assignments and chip counts for the full final day field are below.

Table Seat Player Country Chip Count
Table 1 Seat 1 Alex Hendriks Netherlands 1,200,000
Table 1 Seat 2 Empty    
Table 1 Seat 3 Empty    
Table 1 Seat 4 Wim Anne Wesselink Netherlands 650,000
Table 1 Seat 5 Martin Olali   810,000
Table 1 Seat 6 Jack Hardcastle United Kingdom 215,000
Table 1 Seat 7 Weijie Zheng Ireland 660,000
Table 1 Seat 8 Ciaran Burke Ireland 1,200,000
Table 2 Seat 1 Espen Uhlen Jorstad Norway 785,000
Table 2 Seat 2 Samuel Baneham Ireland 385,000
Table 2 Seat 3 Niall Farrell Scotland 755,000
Table 2 Seat 4 Empty    
Table 2 Seat ‘5 Jamie Nixon England 980,000
Table 2 Seat 6 Steven Vollers Netherlands 895,000
Table 2 Seat 7 Empty    
Table 2 Seat 8 Jason Tompkins Ireland 295,000
Ciaran Burke 1,200,000 0
Alex Hendriks 1,200,000 0
Jamie Nixon 980,000 0
Steven Vollers 895,000 0
Martin Olali 810,000 0
Espen Uhlen Jorstad 785,000 0
Niall Farrell 755,000 0
Weijie Zheng 660,000 0
Wim Anne Wesselink 650,000 0
Samuel Baneham 385,000 0
Jason Tompkins 295,000 0
Jack Hardcastle 215,000 0