Day Two play at the European Poker Tour stop at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in London is in full swing, with the final numbers for the tournament exceeding expectations and bringing new faces to the top of the leaderboard.
After 280 players stepped up on Friday with their £5000 buy in, a stunning 411 came to the tables on Saturday for action. This brought the numbers for the tournament to an impressive 691 runners, far below last year’s record field of 848 but strong for the current state of the tournament poker world. A prize pool of £3.35 million will be divvied up between 102 players who cash in this tournament, with the eventual champion walking off with a nice £750,000 payday.
World Poker Tour champion John Gale was the early leader on Saturday, but he was unable to maintain it throughout the day. Although he would make it through the evening action, he finished the day with 118,700 in chips, slightly more than what he had after the second break. While Gale was in the Top Ten for Saturday’s play, several other players were able to pass him for the Day 1B chip honors.
The most notable pros from Day 1B were Sorel Mizzi and Justin Bonomo. The two young pros were able to garner chip stacks of 129,100 and 126,100, respectively, which was good for fifth and sixth place among Saturday’s players. They were outpaced, however, by Benny Spindler, who took the Day 1B chip lead with a 160,800 stack, and Raj Vohra, who finished play Saturday night with 156,600.
Among the top professionals who were eliminated on Day 1B were Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu and Vanessa Selbst, while former EPT London champion Vicky Coren, David Williams and Jason Mercier came back on Sunday for play.
While Spindler and Vohra’s performance was exceptional, it wasn’t enough to knock off the Day 1A chip leader, Lukasz Golczyk. Golczyk started the day on Sunday with 211,600 in chips for the overall lead in the tournament. Once the 162 survivors from Day 1A and the 255 from Day 1B came to the felt today, Spindler and Vohra were in second and third place, respectively, while Umberto Vitagliano and Steven Warburton rounded out the Top Five.
Early play on Day 2 hasn’t been kind to some of the chip leaders from the dual Day Ones. Spindler has been able to increase his stack by almost double, currently sitting at 303K in chips. Golczyk, for his part, has only put another 17,000 in chips into his stack and is currently sitting at 228K, good for eighth place at this time. Some of the professional names on the leaderboard at the start of Sunday’s play have also been eliminated from the tournament.
2009 World Series of Poker bracelet winner Ville Wahlbeck was an early elimination, as his pocket Jacks were bested by Anton Ionel’s A-Q when a Queen came on the turn and, adding insult to injury, an Ace came on the river. Bonomo was another victim of the early action, busting from the tournament when his pocket fours were outrun by Mercier’s A-J. Joining Wahlbeck and Bonomo on the rail are other top pros such as Noah Boeken, Chris Moorman and Soren Kongsgaard.
With the final level of the day getting ready to start, Matthijs Remie has moved into the chip lead with 390,000 in front of him. Jonathan Layani (325K), Spindler (303K), Sam Grafton (280K) and Basile Yaiche (268K) round out the Top Five behind Remie. Mizzi (180K), Jake Cody (165K), Humberto Brenes (132K) and the legendary Doyle Brunson (playing in his first EPT tournament) are threats that are lurking down the leaderboard.
Currently there are 210 players remaining in the tournament, but expect that number to drop below the 200 mark before play ends this afternoon. The money bubble will most likely burst tomorrow, with the championship of this latest EPT stop determined on Thursday.
