After Day Two of the Epic Poker League’s second Main Event at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, 2011 World Series of Poker bracelet winner Fabrice Soulier has surged to the lead with 23 players remaining.
The fifty players who returned for action on Wednesday were looking at a short day of play, with only five levels scheduled for action. The field was in pursuit of Jaime Kaplan and Dan O’Brien, who had pulled away from the pack on Day One and were sitting with only 3200 chips separating them. Day Two would bring challenges for the two leaders, however, as both players finished the day vastly under their starting stacks.
Kaplan would lose the most chips of the duo, falling from 324,600 in chips to 245K, while O’Brien dropped from his 321,400 starting stack to 201K in chips. Even with their chip losses, however, both players remain in the tournament and Kaplan – who earned his seat in the EPL Main Event through his finish in the Pro/Am on Sunday – is still in contention in the Top Ten.
Soulier was potentially the biggest story of the day, starting off action Wednesday afternoon with 105,300. He would start off his charge to the top by bouncing Pro/Am winner Greg “FBT” Mueller from the tournament and follow that up by taking out Mike Sowers. He would make his biggest moves late in the day’s play, however, when he eliminated Ralph “Rep” Porter, James “mig.com” Mackey and Andrew Robl in slightly more than two hours. By the end of play on Wednesday, Soulier – who passed on the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club in France for this tournament – had amassed 453,500 in chips.
In the pro laden field, it is surprising that two players from the inaugural EPL tournament are still in contention going into Day Three. David “Chino” Rheem, who pulled in a $1 million payday for taking the title in August, was in the Top Ten starting play on Wednesday with his 173,300 in chips, but he could not garner any chips during the action on Day Two and ended the day with a 136K chip stack. Still, he is among the 23 players remaining in eighteenth place, although he will have some work to do if he is to go “back to back” in EPL tournaments.
The other top finisher at the inaugural EPL event, Erik Seidel, continues to have an outstanding 2011 tournament poker season. Seidel began the Day Two action with slightly more than 91K in chips, but a big hand against Robl (prior to his elimination) drove the 2010 Poker Hall of Fame inductee over the 400,000 chip mark. He finished the day with 353,500 in chips and is in third place, in good shape to make his second consecutive EPL final table.
If there were a “Player of the Day” honor given out, it would have to go to Canada’s Matt Marafioti. Starting the day in 43rd place with only 38,000 in chips, he would finish Day Two with an astounding 302,000. This puts Marafioti, who is searching for his first major championship, in the running in fifth place.
When the cards fly this afternoon at the Palms, the Top Ten will look like this:
1. Fabrice Soulier (London, the United Kingdom), 453,500
2. David Steicke (Hong Kong, China), 436,000
3. Erik Seidel (Las Vegas, NV), 353,500
4. Nam Le (Tustin, CA), 306,000
5. Matt Marafioti (Toronto, Canada), 302,000
6. Dutch Boyd (Las Vegas, NV), 262,000
7. Adam Levy (Los Angeles, CA), 253,500
8. Chris Moore (Chicago, IL) 250,000
9. Jaime Kaplan (Las Vegas, NV), 245,000
10. Isaac Baron (Menlo Park, CA), 217,500
Other players bubbling just outside the Top Ten with a shot at the final table are Tim West (214K), O’Brien (201K) and Matt Glantz (198.5K).
With 23 players remaining in the game when the tournament restarts this afternoon, eleven of them are going to go home with nothing to show for their three days of work. Only the final twelve players will earn cash, with the eventual champion on Friday taking down a $782,410 payday.
