PokerStars EPT London High Roller: Leonid Markin Leads Final 10; Johnny Lodden Still In
Russia's Leonid Markin finished Day 2 of the European Poker Tour London High Roller as the chip leader with 1,921,000. In second place is Jorryt van Hoof from the Netherlands with 1,546,000, and German Martin Quack is third with 1,328,000.
Markin (pictured) grabbed a big lead when he got into a preflop raising war with Sergio Aido just before the money bubble. They had the two biggest stacks in the tournament and when Aido shoved it was a simple call for Markin who held A♠A♦. Aido was visibly shocked as he turned over A♣K♦ and the final board of J♠2♣Q♠6♠6♥ propelled Markin to nearly 1,500,000 chips, a lead he never relinquished. Aido was left nursing a short stack.
With entry closed at the start of play, the final tally was 173 entries including 46 re-entries. The winner is set to receive £394,200 with 23 places getting paid.
There were 86 players who began Day 2 and the action was relentless from the get-go. Full Tilt Poker Professional Viktor Blom was one of the early fallers with most of the damage done when his shove with A♠J♠ saw Dimitar Danchev make the call with A♦Q♥. The Swedish online sensation never recovered and was gone soon after.
The bustouts continued to come quickly and it wasn’t long before Pablo Fernandez burst the bubble when his shove with 9♠9♣ ran into the K♥K♦ of Danchev and the K♣K♠ of Joel Nordvkist.
The action sped up after the bubble with Aido managing to limp to a min-cash of £19,650 in 23rd place after his earlier misstep. Sam Trickett made it to 20th, which was good for £21,350 after spending much of the earlier part of the day insisting he was ready to go home.
Ole Schemion was the 19th place finisher. Niall Farrell picked off a big river bluff shove from Schemion on a board of 6♥J♦K♣7♥Q♠. Farrell correctly put him on, “A jack that’s bluffing. Jack-ten?” and made the call with K♠8♥. Schemion did indeed have J♠10♠. A few hands later and the German was gone.
Yann Dion was the chip leader at the start of the day but had a horrendous run of cards and luck. He hung on, displaying remarkable patience to finish in 12th place and take home £28,800.
Team PokerStars Pro Victoria Coren Mitchell was in fine form and looking, as she repeatedly told her table, for good spots to gamble. She found several of these spots but eventually ran into Martin Quack's aces, finishing in 11th to bag £33,050.
By the close of 10 levels of play there would be only 10 players left, two shy of the official final table. Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden (272,000) will be returning as the short stack and other names to look out for include, Craig McCorkell (887,000), Andrew Chen (566,000) and Farrell (510,000).
Cards will be in the air at noon Saturday as they play down to a winner. If it’s anything like today it will be a tremendous day of poker, so be sure not to miss it. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to record the drama as it happens. We'll see you then!
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