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.

First to act Mauricio Sanches lays out 160,000 and big blind Jiaming Zhao defends to see the flop 4♦ 2♦ 8♥ that gets checked to the T♥ turn. With the board favoring the big blind's range, Jiaming Zhao tests the waters with a 200,000 lead, Sanches raises to 500,000 and Zhao lets it go, losing two time banks in the process.

Yilu Yuan opens 60,000 from +2, cutoff Mauricio Sanches ups it to 160,000 and declares all-in after Yuan four-bet to 285,000. Yuan lets it go.

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.

Fresh from shipping two high rollers at the ATTP Cambodia two weeks ago, Mauricio Sanches lays out 25,000 from +1 and takes hijack Liang Chen to the flop K♦ J♣ 5♦ where his 30,000 c-bet gets called to the T♠ turn. Slowing down to a check, Sanches watches Chen fork out 53,000 before putting a 203,000 check-raise into the middle. Chen fills up for the river T♥ where he lets it go against another 250,000 bet from the Colombian.