European Poker Tour Copenhagen Day 2: Tureniec Leads Heading into Day 3
Day 2 of the DKK 35,000 buy-in PokerStars European Poker Tour Copenhagen Main Event brought 262 players back to the centrally located and, as of last night, snow-covered Radisson Blu. The combined survivors from both start days were either looking to double through quickly or augment their already healthy stacks — no one came back just to fold through the day, slow structure or no slow structure. This attitude was reflected in the rate of attrition in the Scandinavian Ballroom. By the end of the day, the field had shrunk to just 73 and was led by Michael Tureniec who bagged 640,000 in chips.
Close behind him is Per Linde with 514,000, while just missing out on reaching the half-million mark were both Joel Nordkvist and Team PokerStars Pro JP Kelly. Kelly is one of three Team Pros to make it to Day 3 — his fellows are Florian Langmann and Johnny Lodden. Fernando Brito has also made Day 3, but the EPT Player of the Year leaderboard topper is sitting with a relatively short stack.
Making it over the Day 2 hurdle are most of the leaders from last night, although they are no longer in the upper echelons — Michael Aron ended on 205,400 and Domantas Klimciauskas on 212,200. An exception was Ramzi Jelassi, who was eliminated late in the day along with 2008 World Series of Poker champion Peter Eastgate.
Eastgate went out with Q♠Q♦ on the flop of 8♥5♣2♥. He check-raised a bet of 8,000 from PokerStars qualifier Aron to 27,700. Aron clicked it back to 50,000 and Eastgate moved all-in. A quick call came from Aron as he held the 5♥5♦ for middle set. Eastgate's two-outer wouldn't appear as the 3♣ fell on turn and the J♠ hit the river, meaning Eastgate's return to the felt was left with him leaving empty handed.
Other notable bustouts included Annette Obrestad and Scott Montgomery, who happened to bust at the same time on different tables, Kevin Stani and Team Pros Ville Wahlbeck and Toni Judet.
From behind his trademark aviator shades, Tureniec assessed his constantly changing table lineup (changing mainly because he kept winning races and busting players) and built up steam throughout the day, despite facing off against players like Lodden, Juha Helppi, Mark Gork and ex-leader Klimciauskas. In all, the leaderboard is topped by three Swedes.
In total, the 449-player field created a prize pool of DKK 15,086,400, or around €2 million, and the last 64 players will all receive a taste of it. Having finished fairly close to the money, expect the bubble to be a brief affair tomorrow, especially considering the relentless aggression displayed by the majority of these players.
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