There were 158 players that survived to day 2 of the PokerStars European Poker Tour London £5,200 no-limit hold’em main event, and at the start of the day they all had one question on their minds. How much was the winner going to walk away with? That answer came early during play, when the prize pool was flashed on the tournament board. The turnout of 596 players had created a prize pool worth £3,349,200 and a first-place prize of £1,000,000. The top 56 players would receive at least £8,156.
Now that the players knew what they were gunning for, their goal was to make it past the money bubble. The bubble approached rapidly, as the field was sliced down in just under five levels time before hand-for-hand play took over the tournament and slowed things down. Still, the money bubble burst at 7:45 p.m. local time, and the players went to dinner when that happened.
The big-name professionals that fell during the carnage that saw 102 players fall during 4 hours and 45 minutes of poker included: Jean-Robert Bellande, John Dwyer, Neil Channing, Isaac Haxton, Ramzi Jelassi, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Roland de Wolfe, Gus Hansen, Willie Tann, Julian Thew, Pascal Perrault, Scott Montgomery, Denes Kalo, Kathy Liebert, Peter Jetten, Michael Watson, and the bubble boy, Hafiz Khan.
Thew easily had the most excruciating elimination experience of the day, which was featured in CardPlayer.com's live updates:
Julian Thew Eliminated
Julian Thew ran into a series of unfortunate events that led to his untimely elimination from the tournament. First, he made a straight on a board of 10-9-8-Q, and moved all in after another queen fell on the river. Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki had made quad queens when the queen fell on the river though, and this knocked Thew down to 50,000.
On the next hand a player in early position shoved and Horecki attempted to make a raise as he didn't understand that there was action in front of him. The floor decided to let him call and then Thew moved all in on top of both opponents. Horecki made the call, and the trio turned up their hands:
Thew: K-K
Horecki: A-Q
Opponent: K-Q
Board: A-8-5-3-7
Thew was eliminated in an unlucky turn of events and Horecki now has 175,000.
Eight members of Team PokerStars Pro started day 2, but by the time the money bubble burst, only three of them were still alive and kicking. Isabelle Mericer, Andre Akkari, Victor Ramdin, Alex Kravchenko, and Barry Greenstein fell by the wayside before the dinner break. Season 3 EPT London champion Vicky Coren and Vanessa Rousso made the money, but not the end of the day. Polish player Marcin Horecki is the last Team PokerStars Pro left in the event.
Play ended at 10:15 p.m. local time, and the final 32 players will return tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. GMT to play down to a final table of eight. At the end of the night Anthony Lellouch and Philippe Dauteuil were in a battle for the chip lead. Other big-name contenders with big stacks heading into day 3 were David Benyamine, Johannes Strassmann, Eric Liu, and Joe Elpayaa. Benyamine is currently in third place in the Card Player Player of the Year race, and he could gain some ground on POY leader John Phan with a final-table apperance here in London.
Be sure to tune in tomorrow and check out the EPT Live video feed that will be featured on CardPlayer.com to bring you every minute of day 3 live on your computer.
Here is the prize money that was awarded on day 2:
33: Rene Mouritsen (Denmark) -- £11,419
34: Priyan Demel (UK) -- £11,419
35: Erik Frieberg (Sweden) -- £11,419
36: Andrea Benelli (Italy) -- £11,419
37: Axel Albertsson (Swedish) -- £11,419
38: Vicky Coren (UK) Team PokerStars Pro -- £11,419
39: Vanessa Rousso (USA) Team PokerStars Pro -- £11,419
40: Toni Ojala -- £11,419
41: Theodoros Aidonopoulos (Cyprus) -- £9,789
42: Carlo Gabriele (Italy) -- £9,789
43: Jonathan Aguiar (USA) -- £9,789
44: Daniel Albright (Denmark) -- £9,789
45: Thomas MacNamara (UK) -- £9,789
46: Georges Moussa (USA) -- £9,789
47: Paul Dack (UK) -- £9,789
48: Antto Lohvansuu (Finland) -- £9,789
49: Gicquel Youn (France) -- £8,156
50: Mohammed Jabar (Lebanon) -- £8,156
51: Arnaud Mattern (France) -- £8,156
52: Panzeri Stefano (Italy) -- £8,156
53: Joe Grech (UK) -- £8,156
54: Bernard Roy (France) -- £8,156
55: Javier Dominguez (Spain) -- £8,156
56: Florent Auber (France) -- £8,156
Here is the full chip-count list from the end of day 2:
| Name |
Country |
|
Chips |
| Philippe D'Auteuil |
Canada |
|
477,000 |
| Antony Lellouche |
France |
|
446,000 |
| Johannes Strassman |
Germany |
|
442,000 |
| Erik Sjodin |
Sweden |
|
342,500 |
| Eric Liu |
USA |
|
326,500 |
| Huseyin Yilmaz |
Turkey |
|
325,000 |
| David Benyamine |
France |
|
323,500 |
| Joseph Elpayaa |
USA |
|
309,500 |
| Peter Eastgate |
Danish |
|
295,500 |
| Peter Busch |
USA |
|
294,000 |
| Max Pescatori |
Italy |
|
285,500 |
| Joao Barbosa |
Portugal |
|
173,000 |
| Ian Frazer |
UK |
|
138,000 |
| Michael Martin |
USA |
|
133,500 |
| Sorel Mizzi |
Canada |
|
120,000 |
| Brian Green |
Costa Rica |
|
116,500 |
| Robert Firestone |
USA |
|
113,500 |
| Gunnar Rabe |
Sweden |
|
113,000 |
| Michael Tureniec |
Sweden |
|
112,000 |
| Gualter Salles |
Brazil |
|
109,500 |
| Alexia Portal |
France |
|
104,500 |
| Ramin Henke |
Germany |
|
102,500 |
| Marcin Horecki |
Poland |
|
102,000 |
| Christopher Wolters |
UK |
|
97,000 |
| Frode Gjesdal |
Norway |
|
95,500 |
| Beth Shak |
USA |
|
90,000 |
| Alan Smurfit |
Ireland |
|
89,500 |
| Tyler Reiman |
USA |
|
86,000 |
| Jonas Molander |
Sweden |
|
84,500 |
| Justin Truesdell |
USA |
|
82,000 |
| Carter Gill |
USA |
|
38,000 |
| Scotty Nyugen |
USA |
|
36,50 |
