Rookies Flourish as Dunham Earns a Trophy on His First Visit; Crema & Bitton Bag Day 1b Chip Lead

Eric Dunham, winner of Event #5

Day 3 of the the 2025 PPT #2 is under wraps. Players who joined the series for their first time found their stride today. Eric Dunham took down Event #5: $300 NLH at his first ever PPT tournament. Sebastien Crema found the chip lead alongside Nadav Bitton in his first ever PPT cash. Day 2 of the Event #3: NLH $670 will play down to a winner tomorrow.

Sebastien Crema & Nadav Bitton Bag Day 1b Chip Lead

Event 3:$670 NLH Day 1B ($600+$70)
Date:May 17, 1 PM
Blinds:40 Minutes
Starting Stack:25k
Late Entry:9 Levels (~8:15 PM)
Day 1 Ends:12.5% of the Starting Field
Entries (Prizes):125 – $71,250 (Combined: $126,540)

The last flight of Event #3 has completed with 16 players making it through to Day 2. Sebastien Crema and Nadav Bitton both bagged the largest stack with 343,000 a piece. Alan Zhu retains the overall chip lead with 565,500. Taran Parmar also sits on the podium with 363,500 from Day 1a.

Day 1b played slightly longer than the previous flight, with play ending at level 17. A few familiar faces from events throughout the week bubbled including Senior final tablist Kim Graham. He got it in against Varan Sidhu and turned trips. However, his run would end when Varan Sidhu made his nut flush on the river. Bubble play slowed to a crawl with sixteen players bagging to head into the final day of this event.

A total of 122 players jumped into the action to bring the prize pool to a total of $126,540 ($28,960 for first). The Day 2 action gets going at 1 pm in the Pearl Showroom, and they’ll play down to a winner. Four players on the final table will be pocketing five-figure scores before the day is done. Blinds remain at 40 minutes until play is heads up, when it will drop to 20 minutes. Follow the exclusive 1b reporting at https://www.poker.pro/live-reporting/2025-pure-poker-tour-series-2-event-3-670-nlh/.

Final Stacks From Day 1b

PlayerChips
Sebastian Crema343,000
Nadav Bitton343,000
Keith Schultz330,000
Ryan Calahan303,000
Alemu Makonen294,000
Shane Brotherwood265,000
Treenna Angelski207,000
Adrian Baran150,000
Mike Malm147,000
Kyle Levicki144,000
Victor Ma128,000
Brady O’Hara122,000
Chris Lahey105,000
Skyler York103,000
Daniel Luczyk74,000
Shane Chief70,000

Eric Dunham Finds a Trophy on His First PPT Visit

Eric Dunham

The side event of the day, Event #5: $300 NLH took a different approach to many of the side events thus far. It kept things simple as a straight No-Limit Hold’em tournament with a simple one day structure. Eric Dunham came to visit some friends and tried his hand at his first PPT series. After traveling from Fort McMurray and a 8 hours of play later, he had a PPT trophy to take home as a souvenir.

He overcame the 82 player field, as he took home the main share of the $21,033 prize pool. For his effort, he received $6,733 along with one of the newly designed PPT trophies. He bested Shihao Zhao in heads up play, although he commented that Zhao “Wasn’t making it easy” for him.

Dunham got it in a heavy underdog with jack-nine, against Zhao’s queen-jack. However, a flopped straight flipped the odds and Dunham held to finish the tournament in style. The tournament featured many players with prior cashes this series including Joe Herlein and Zsuzsanna Spence.

PlacePlayerPrize
1 Eric Dunham$6,733
2 Shihao Zhao$4,415
3 Zsuzsanna Spence$2,945
4 Lehat Musa$2,105
5 Victor Chouliaras$1,575
6 Jeffery Clarke$1,135
7 Joe Herlein$885
8 Tyler Roll$695
9 Brett Higgins$545

There is still plenty of action to come here at Pure Casino Yellowhead. Sunday features two action packed tournaments as the conclusion of Event #3: $670 NLH plays out. Alongside it is the NLH Big Bounty $560 where $200 from the buy-in will be given as a bounty for each entrant. Follow all the exclusive reporting here on poker.pro.

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