PokerStars.com EPT Prague Main Event Day 2: Walid Bou Habib Leads; Little Close Behind
On Saturday, Season 10 European Poker Tour Prague Main Event continued with Day 2 action from the Hilton in the Czech Republic’s largest city. Nine late entries combined with the 389 players from Day 1a and 609 from Day 1b brought the total field to 1,007 players — a 17% increase from Season 9’s 864 players — which created a prize pool of €4,883.950 that will be paid to the top 151 finishers.
Day 2 began with 549 players returning to action, but after six 75-minute levels of play just 189 remained. The man best positioned to capture the €889,000 first-place prize is Walid Bou Habib, who finished as the Day 2 chip leader with 509,000. You may recall Habib, who hails from Lebanon, was runner-up in the EPT9 Deauville, which you can read about by clicking here.
Top End of Day 2 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Walid Bou Habib | Lebanon | 509,000 |
| 2 | Jonathan Little | USA | 471,000 |
| 3 | Ka Kwan Lau | Spain | 440,000 |
| 4 | Szabolcs Mayer | Hungary | 428,200 |
| 5 | Julian Track | Germany | 428,000 |
| 6 | Sebastian Saffari | UK | 428,000 |
| 7 | Amir Lehavot | USA | 427,000 |
| 8 | Ihar Koshal | Belarus | 417,000 |
| 9 | Sergey Baburin | Russia | 413,000 |
| 10 | Artem Romanov | Russia | 399,700 |
Action resumed in Level 9 (400/800/100) and straight out of the gate players began to fall including Somar Al-Darwich, Toby Lewis, Micah Raskin, Oleksii Kovalchuk, and defending champ Ramzi Jelassi.
Jelassi actually fell in Level 10 (500/1,000/100) when Elfad Mammadov opened for 1,800 and was raised by the active Nikov Dobromir Georgiev to 5,200. Jelassi, who had folded to a river bet a few hands before to leave him with a stack of 14,100, then moved all in from the small blind. Mammadov tank-folded and then Georgiev made the call.
Georgiev: 5♠5♥
Jelassi: A♠Q♦
The flop was dealt Q♣K♠J♣ and it appeared Jelassi was going to win the race, but the 5♦ turn gave Georgiev back the lead. The 9♥ river missed Jelassi’s straight draw, and that meant there would be no repeat victory for the Swedish pro.
Before long Jelassi had company on the rail in the form of Bryn Kenney, Caicai Huang, Sergio Aido, Gaelle Baumann, Luca Pagano, Daniel Negreanu, and Martin Finger, who was the last former EPT champ standing.
Another player who failed to survive was Marvin Rettenmaier, who exited in a big hand in Level 12 (800/1,200/200). It happened when EPT San Remo winner Ludovic Lacay opened under the gun to 3,500 and got met by a reraise to 8,300 from Rettenmaier. Lacay made it 21,000, Rettenmaier made the call, and the flop came down 5♥7♥9♦.
Lacay bet out 20,000, Rettenmaier called, and the turn brought the 6♣. This time Lacay checked and Rettenmaier bet out 33,200. Lacay thought about it for bit before announcing to be all in. Rettenmaier looked a tiny bit concerned fairly quickly. Lacay showed the Q♥9♥ and was in bad shape against Rettenmaier's flopped set with 7♣7♦.
"Just the hearts then," Lacay said. The dealer delivered and put out the K♥ on the river. Rettenmaier gently made effort to shove all his chips to the Frenchman and shook hands with the players at the table.
There’s no doubt some big names fell on Day 2, but plenty of them made it through the night including Jonathan Little (471,100), Sebastian Saffari (428,000), Amir Lehavot (427,500), Kevin Iacofano (380,000), Ana Marquez (319,400), Max Silver (259,000), Ludovic Lacay (242,800), Ari Engel (240,300), and Darren Elias (224,100).
Day 3 will kick off at Noon local time on Sunday, and the money bubble ought to burst early on. Of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the latest and greatest from the largest EPT Prague in history!.
While you wait, check out this EPT10 Prague Hand Analysis with Jonathan Little:
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