Guillaume Diaz Leads EPT Malta Main Event After Day 2
on Day 2 of the 2016 PokerStars.com EPT13 Malta Main Event, 233 players return to the tables of the Casino Portomaso and another eight hopefuls opted to buy in with a fresh stack of 30,000. Along with two no-shows, the field size of 468 entries created a total prize pool of €2,269,800. The top 87 spots were to be paid at least €8,070 for their efforts, whereas the winner will receive a payday of €355,700 this upcoming Saturday.
After six levels of 75 minutes, the money spots were narrowly missed, as 90 players bagged up chips with Guillaume Diaz in the lead. The Frenchman bagged up 583,500. He is followed by Gianfranco Visalli (518,000) and Peter Ockenden (469,500).
Other big stacks and notables include Xixiang Luo (390,000), Guillaume Valle (363,000), Sarah Herzali (362,000) Dmitry Yurasov (358,000), Elie Saad (302,000) and Eugene Katchalov (284,000). Former EPT champions that made it through include Dominik Panka (365,000), Davidi Kitai (284,500), Frederik Jensen (191,500), EPT11 Malta winner Jean Montury (85,000) and Roberto Romanello (82,000).
Day 2 started with a setup on the feature table and William Kassouf endured a deja vu moment from the 2016 Main Event when he ran with kings into the aces of Brian Altman. Vladimir Troyanovskiy busted with deuces in the same hand as well. [Removed:17] got his short stack in good with ace-queen, but Roberto Romanello's A♦J♦ connected with the board to bust the €25,750 Super High Roller champion. Jakub Michalak, who won the €10,300 Single-Day High Roller the previous night, sent his stack over to Guillaume Valle and the Frenchman took the lead going into the first break of the day.
Georgios Zisimopoulos lost a flip against Diaz. Charlie Carrel also joined the rail in the second level of Day 2. Other casualties included the sole remaining PokerStars Team Pro George Danzer, Koray Aldemir, Paul-Francois Tedeschi, Mikhail Petrov, Russell Thomas and IPT Malta High Roller champion Stefan Jedlicka.
It was all about Diaz in the next two levels, as he knocked out Pasi Sormunen and consequently built his stack to become the first player with half a million in chips. Start-of-the-day chip leader Andras Nemeth was sent to the rail after he first doubled Pawel Brzeski and then sent the remainder of his stack over to Eugene Katchalov. Sarah Herzali knocked out Asker Aloev and Bartolomiej Machon with a set of jacks and also cracked the top five at the end of level 12 with 111 remaining.
In the last two levels, another 21 players ran out of chips. Pierre Calamusa's bluff went horribly wrong, as Yurasov snap-called with pocket kings. Visalli made a big call with pocket tens on a seven-high turn to eliminate Simon Amyot; the Canadian had pocket fours for a smaller pair and the straight draw. Several other notables also missed out on the money as well: Ludovic Geilich, Alexandros Kolonias, Paul Newey, and Fabrice Soulier.
Malta's "poker mama" Jacqueline Cachia was also eliminated later on. Dan Shak had raised, then called the shoves of Daniele Colautti and Cachia with ace-king. Colautti had nines and Cachia had queens (a king on the flop seemed to have sealed the double elimination). Colautti spiked a nine on the river to double. The last five hands of the night then brought three double-ups and 90 players bagged up.
As a result, Day 3 will recommence at 12 p.m. local time on the money bubble with blinds of 2,000-4,000 and a running ante of 500. The PokerNews live reporting team will be back near the tables to provide all the action until a winner is crowned.
