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A TRIO of British players are leading the hunt for the EPT Vilamoura heading in to tonight's final table.

The chip leader is 20-year-old PokerStars player Toby Lewis from Southampton. Lewis, who has a stack of 3,322,000, has played several EPTs and cashed in Prague and the Grand Final last season. He also came 7th at the PokerStars IPT event in Venice for €25,000 and 12th at the recent PokerStars Russian Poker Series event in Riga for €5,250.

Sam Trickett, 24, from Nottingham is just behind with  3,318,000. Trickett has been playing poker, both live and online, for around six years. This is his third EPT, but first cash (he has played the last two EPT London events).

His best live result to date was runner-up to Jason DeWitt in the WSOP $5,000 NLHE event this summer for over $500k but he has had several other big scores including fourth place in the 2008 WSOP $5k NLHE event and winning the Luton GUKPT in 2008.

Amazingly, in third and well positioned for a charge at the €467,835 title is England football legend Teddy Sheringham, with 1,783m chips.

The former Manchester United star, who won 51 caps for his country and scored a staggering 300 career goals, already boasts two EPT cashes. He won £11,600 at last year's EPT London for £11,600 and he came 103rd at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo last season for €20,000.

Sheringham's biggest cash to date was £40,481 in last year’s WSOP-E Main Event - but that could be smashed this evening.

The short stack with 259,000 is veteran Dutch pro Rob Hollink, the very first EPT Grand Final Champion back in 2005, and now in with a chance of becoming the first ever EPT double champion.

A total of 384 players entered the €5,300 EPT Vilamoura Main Event creating a €1.8 million prize pool and making it the biggest tournament ever held in Portugal

* Keep checking Poker Jolt for a full report on the final table of the EPT Vilamoura