TLPT MAIN EVENT 15K (SHR) - 8 HANDED ($15,000)

The Lord Poker Tournament SHR Main Event with a prize pool of a whopping $3,000,000 has attracted a total of 191 players that all ponied up the $15,000 buy-in and now has 15 hopefuls left standing that will compete for the $750,000 top prize, the trophy and bragging rights for making history as the inaugural champion.

All of the remaining players had to go through a star studded field with bracelet winners Daniel "Jungleman" Cates, Dominik Nitsche, Yinan Zhou, Mao Renji, Lei Yu, Calvin Lee, Ami Barer, Dong Chen and a flurry of high stakes players from all around the globe.

Topping the leaderboard with a huge gap to the rest of the field is German Marius Gierse who is famous for his online accomplishments, but racked up several million dollars in live earnings over the past decade as well. He was one of the people that took a starting stack from Ivan Zhang when he tried to spin up a stack during the closing levels of late registration that got him to a 62BB stack at the end of level 14. From then on he consistently chipped up, becoming chip leader of his table and then took the overall lead during level 20 and never looked back. Busting Raffaele Sorrentino in 17th on the buzzer to put a 20BB cherry on top of his 7,545,000 (94BB) stack.

Second in chips is Martin Sedlak - another German who has several final tables to his name in 2025 already - who came back from the brink in level 20 and finished the day with the elimination of Calvin Lee for 20BB and shortly after Yunkyu Song in 16th for another 7BB that concluded Day 2. He will unbag 4,755,000 (59BB) tomorrow.

AAPoker Ambassadors Ivan Zhang - 3,550,000 (44BB) and Quan Zhou - 2,140,000 (27BB) are also still in the stacked Top 15.

Day 3 will start at 13:00 local on Sunday the 18th with 16 minutes left in level 22 and finish when a champion is determined.

The SMP Live Updates will cover the action from start to finish.

The Italian needs major help, but misses completely on K♥ 3♠ 5♦ 7♦ 6♦ , sending him home in 17th for $33,000.

With 26 players left and everyone a min cash of $28,000 secured already we have German Marius Gierse in a commanding lead.

Day 2 will conclude when we reach the last two tables with 16 players bagging their chips for tomorrow.

With the bust of bracelet winner Yinan Zhou on the feature table we are now on the bubble.

Marius Gierse opens 100,000 from +2 and takes two customers to the flop Q♠ K♠ Q♣ where his 75,000 c-bet keeps only big blind Quang Minh Nguyen around for the turn 5♥ that gets checked to the 5♠ river. Nguyen forks out a 130,000 lead that pushes Gierse off his hand.

Cutoff Yilu Yuan's 80,000 raise takes two interested parties to the flop 6♥ T♥ 6♦ where his 75,000 c-bet keeps only button Marius Gierse around for the 3♦ turn. A second barrel of 200,000 gets the job done.

Ivan Zhang makes it 80,000 from the hijack, button Yilu Yuan declares all-in for 245,000, small blind Marius Gierse cold calls and Zhang fills up as well.

The board 8♦ J♣ 3♣ 4♠ 9♥ gets checked down with everyone missing and Yuan's A♣ 7♣ winning against Zhang's A♠ 5♠ and Gierse's K♠ Q♠ .

Ivan Zhang makes it 60,000 from +2 and small blind Marius Gierse increases to 190,000. Zhang finds a call with the aid of a time bank and the flop falls 6♣ J♥ T♦ with Gierse slowing down to a check-call of 225,000.

The turn J♠ gets rejected for a free river 9♠ where Gierse lays out 200,000 and Zhang consumes a time bank before declaring all-in for 765,000. Gierse is in the tank for six time banks before letting it go and says 'nice hand' when Action Ivan shows 6♠ 5♠ .

With 49 out of 191 total entries remaining that all want to get to the 29 money places we see Gary Thompson closing in on chip leader Bin Leng in the hunt for the top prize of $750,000.

The dealer makes it interesting until the end by flipping over 3♣ 9♠ 3♠ 5♠ 3♥ sending Zhang to the registration desk for another time.