Eastgate gains speed at Premier League

Eastgate is on a roll with two wins in a row at the Premier League III.Peter Eastgate may have had a bit of a slow start in the PartyPoker Premier League III this week but the past two days he’s proven worthy of his World Champion title.

The 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event winner picked up another heat win in the Premier League III on Thursday, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan finally picked up a win as well.

Dwan faced off against J.C. Tran, Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, Nenad Medic and Roland De Wolfe on Thursday for Heat 7. Dwan, who is known for his superaggressive play, was at the center of most of the action at the table, as his mixture of creative play and good fortune took him to the first-place spot.

His main challenger at the table was J.C. Tran, who turned in another great performance. When it got to heads-up, though, Dwan had a tremendous $490,000 to $110,000 in chips lead over Tran.

On the final hand durrrr pushed all-in with A7, and Tran called with Q-7 offsuit. All it took was the ace on the flop to give Dwan the hand and the 10 points.

Tran added another six points to his total, keeping him on top of the Premier League III score sheet so far.

Hellmuth was the first out at the table, adding no points to his score this round. Tony G was fifth for two points, Nenad Medic was fourth for three points and Roland De Wolfe was third for four points.

The action resumed Thursday with Heat 8, which saw Peter Eastgate add another 10 points to his total. That helped keep him above Dwan in the rankings and maintain second place.

He picked up the win against Juha Helppi, Andy Black, Annette Obrestad, Vicky Coren and Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott.

The Devilfish finally scored some points, finishing in fourth place for three points. It doesn’t help bring him off the bottom of the scoreboard, though.

The first player to bust at this table was Andy Black. Annette Obrestad picked up two more points for fifth place, while Vicky Coren finished third for four points and Juha Helppi took six points for second place.

By the time Eastgate and Helppi got to heads-up play, it was a very lopsided game. Helppi had a $463,000 to $137,000 lead over Eastgate, but the WSOP champion clawed his way back to earn the top spot.

The final hand saw Helppi raise with K-J offsuit only to see Eastgate push all-in with A-K. Nothing came to improve Helppi’s standing, so Eastgate claimed the win.

The Premier League III standings after four days of play are:

Place	Name	Points
1st	J.C. Tran	32
2nd	Peter Eastgate	26
3rd	Tom Dwan	22
4th	Juha Helppi	20
5th	Vicky Coren	18
6th	Tony G	16
6th	Roland De Wolfe	16
8th	Phil Hellmuth	13
9th	Annette Obrestad	12
10th	Andy Black	10
11th	Nenad Medic	9
12th	Dave Ulliott	3

The players give it a go today with Heat 9 and Heat 10. Heat 9 will include Helppi, Medic, Hellmuth, Tran, Ulliott and Eastgate. Heat 10 will included Tony G, Coren, Obrestad, De Wolfe, Black and Dwan.

That leaves only a couple more heats to go after today to determine who will be playing in the final. Once all 12 heats have played, the top four players with the most points will move on to the final table. The four after them on the board will play heads-up matches to determine who will get the final two seats at the final table.

There they will be playing for a piece of a $1.25 million prize pool.