McDonald Leads Into Day 3
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Day two of EPT Madrid saw 264 runners return to the felt for five more 75-minute levels as the field was gradually whittled down to 112. Despite both upstairs and downstairs rooms being used, it did not take long for everyone to be squeezed into the same area where Juan Navarrate began the day as chip leader. The slightly earlier than usual finish was fairly popular with players, many of whom decided to make use of the extra time and moved on to the famous Bernabeu stadium for Real Madrid's Champions' League clash with CSKA Moscow.
At the end of play, it was a familiar face at the top of chip leader as Mike 'Timex' McDonald (409,800) was one of only two players to finish the day over the 400,000 mark just ahead of Frederik Jensen (404,500). McDonald was back to causing the usual headlines as opposed to a slightly more odd occurrence on Day 1B.
McDonald picked up a huge pot when according to his twitter, he three-bet/five-bet all in with ace-jack against an aggressive player's kings and spiked for a huge pot which put the Canadian into contention for the chip lead about three-quarters of the way through the day. Although that was probably the biggest and most important pot he won, the final hand of the day probably summed up how everything had gone for him as he found aces while a short stack pushed with 5-4, McDonald made quads by the turn...
Other big stacks who have made it through are former EPT Tallinn finalist Dmitri Vitkind (363,000) the always dangerous Mclean Karr (330,700) and Javier Etayo (329,400) and will be looking ahead rather than behind them at this stage of the tournament.
The PokerStars Team Pros suffered a decidedly mixed day but Johnny Lodden (180,900) Angel Guillen (95,000) Henrique Pinho (61,400) and Alex Kravchenko (52,000) all made it through into the third day with the potential of a €545,000 pay-day still in sight. Lodden's story was of particular note, he was at one point sitting with just 28,300 in the last level (14BB's) but suddenly ascended like a rocket and finished the day with well above average.
Those who were a bit more on the receving end were Arnaud Mattern, Fatima Moreira de Melo and the home hope Juan Manuel Pastor, all of whom departed very early on in the day, hampered by their short stacks while Toni Judet and Nacho Barbero would follow them later.
Despite the quality of these exits, there's still many big names involved going into Day 3 such as Mclean Karr, Taylor Paur, Yann Dion, Nicolas Levl while Toby Lewis, Nicolas Chouity, Rupert Elder and Kevin MacPhee, like our chip leader, still harbour hopes of being the first ever double EPT champion.
We'll be back tomorrow from midday, (1200 CET, 0400 PST) as we play into the money and down to our final 24 players. Join the PokerNews Live Reporting Team once more for all the updates from EPT Madrid.