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.

Button Jiaming Zhao opens 120,000 and big blind Quan Zhou defends to see the flop 7♥ A♣ J♠ where Zhao continues for 100,000. Zhou check-raises to 375,000, Zhao calls and fires another 525,000 on the turn A♠ with Zhou check-folding.

Under the gun Jiaming Zhao ups it to 120,000 and takes cutoff Quan Zhou to the flop 7♦ 9♣ Q♦ where his 120,000 c-bet gets called. The turn K♥ gets rejected for a free river 9♥ and Zhao fires another 225,000. Zhou makes the call before throwing his cards in the muck.

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.

Cutoff Quan Zhou puts 70,000 in the middle and fills up after small blind Junbo Qu increased the fee to 225,000. Qu's 225,000 c-bet gets the job done on 9♣ 7♦ 9♥ .

Cutoff Yunkyu Song leads 50,000 and fills up after button Quan Zhou pumped it to 175,000. Zhou continues 160,000 on the flop T♦ Q♣ 3♠ , but lets it go when faced with a 320,000 check-raise from Song.

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.

Lu's two-outer doesn't show on the river T♣ and lets Zhou inch closer to the leader.

Everything is looking peachy for Jiang on 9♦ J♠ 4♥ J♦ before turning pear shaped on the river A♦ , sending him to the rail with no late reg available anymore.

Zhang stays the favorite on K♦ and A♣ , scooping a massive pot and Liu says he folded ace-king.