European Poker Tour Grand Final Day 2: Schulman Leads the Pack
Day 2 of the European Poker Tour Grand Final saw 413 players hit the felt on Tuesday. The roof was not taken off, which meant that players found their seats right away and play started promptly. The bubble burst in the last level of play, and when everything was bagged and tagged, only 116 players remained. Quiet throughout most of the day, Nick Schulman emerged at the end of the night as the chip leader and will head into the third day of play with 742,000.
The next closest in chips to Schulman, David Sesso, sits with 642,500, followed by Jean Francois Talbot, Matt Perrins, and Sami Kelopuro. The last slowly built his stack throughout the day but moved up over 500,000 when he sent Yevgeniy Timoshenko to the rail just before the bubble was burst. The money went in the middle preflop and Timoshenko held K♠K♥ against Kelopuro's A♠A♦. The board ran out 10♥A♣10♣9♦K♦. The Finn will go into Day 3 rounding out the top five chip counts with 552,000.
Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker also accumulated quite the stack throughout the day. Just before the dinner break, Moneymaker eliminated a player when his pocket threes held up against a player's ace-four. He sits in the tenth spot on the leaderboard with 457,000.
The bubble burst when Ake Olsson moved all-in with Q♦J♥ and was called by 10♠6♥. The flop brought 10♣5♠6♠ and it was all but over for Olsson. The turn brought the Q♣, giving Olsson a bit of hope, but the river couldn't do it for the Swede and he hit the rail as player 129.
As always, not everyone makes it through to the next day. Noah Boeken, new PokerStars SportStar Gael Monfils, EPT San Remo winner Liv Boeree, Joe Hachem, Ludovic Lacay, and Leo Margets all had their EPT Grand Final dreams crushed on Day 2.
Coming back to play in Salles des Etoiles for Day 3 are Peter Jetten, Thiago Nishijima, Lex Veldhuis, Melanie Weisner, Victoria Coren, PokerStars Serial Qualifier Pierre Neuville, and Kevin MacPhee.
The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be back at Le Sporting Club at 12 local time in Monte Carlo to bring you all the action from the felt as they play down to the final 24.
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