By Neal Farran | November 28, 2008

The third day of play has been completed at Party Poker Premier League III and JC Tran is in first place by a comfortable margin. Tran has 26 points while his closest competitor Peter Eastgate has 16 points. The standings after three days are as follows:

JC Tran – 26 points
Peter Eastgate – 16 points
Juha Helppi – 14 points
Tony G – 14 points
Vicky Coren – 14 points
Phil Hellmuth – 13 points
Tom Dwan – 12 points
Roland de Wolfe – 12 points
Annette Obrestad – 10 points
Andy Black – 10 points
Nenad Medic – 6 points
Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott – 3 points

Tran was able to build a lead after finishing in first place in the opening days of the Premier League. However, yesterday was the first time that he didn’t manage a win as Peter Eastgate dominated Heat 5. Tran was able to make it to heads-up play against Eastgate, but he was staring at a 541,000 to 59,000 chip disadvantage and didn’t last long in the matchup. Eastgate picked up 10 points for the win while Tran had to settle for 6 points and second place.

Annette Obrestad was the first person to bust out of Heat 5 and Premier League I champion Juha Helppi was the next person out in fifth place; he earned 2 points for this finish. Nenad Medic took fourth place and got 3 points while Premier League veteran Vicky Coren earned 4 points for third place.

Heat 6 of Party Poker Premier League III was a much closer battle at the top with Phil Hellmuth and Roland de Wolfe being almost neck-and-neck going into the heads-up finals. Roland led the match-up at 319,000 chips to 281,000 and the two went back and forth with both players winning multiple poker hands. Finally, Hellmuth was able to river a King while holding K-10 to beat de Wolfe.

Tom Dwan did much of the earlier work in Heat 6 since he busted Tony G out in fifth place and he knocked Andy Black out in fourth place. But Dwan couldn’t get past Hellmuth and his all-in call went belly-up as he busted out in third. Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott continued his Premier League struggles and busted out in last place again. He has just 3 points after the first three days and it seems very unlikely that he will have any shot at advancing to the finals.

There are three more days of preliminary events so there is plenty of time for the rest of the players to catch up to the top four. Tran and Eastgate hold the top two spots as of now while Vicky Coren, Tony G, and Juha Helppi are all tied for the last two finals spots.

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