Nordkvist Leads Final Seven of EPT Sanremo High Roller
Day 2 of the 2012 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Sanremo €10,000 High Roller is in the books, and it was a magnificent day on the felt. The field returned with 44 players, but that number was cut way down to just seven to finish out the day. Topping that bunch is Joel Nordkvist with 1.205 million in chips.
When the day started, Brandon Barnes was on top as the chip leader. Other notables remaining were Team PokerStars Pros Eugene Katchalov, Luca Pagano and Jonathan Duhamel. Those latter three all failed to make the money, having been eliminated before the final ten players remained.
Katchalov came the closest, but his run ended in 12th place at the hands of Nordkvist. Katchalov was all in preflop with the 
, but had run into the 
for Nordkvist. From there, a board of 
spelled the end for Katchalov.
With 11 players left, there was a decent amount of jockeying for position on the bubble, but all eyes were on Kent Roed and Carlo Savinelli as the two short stacks. After a few all-in shoves went uncalled, Philipp Gruissem finally had enough and called a shove from Savinelli.
When the cards were tabled, Savinelli held the slight worst of it with the 
to Gruissem's 
. The flop kept Gruissem in front when the 
fell, and then a very sweatastic 
was added on the turn. The river bricked off with the 
, though, and Savinelli was eliminated in 11th place to send everyone else into the money.
The players played for about another hour and a half before calling it quits for the night. During that time, Mikalai Pobal, the recent winner of EPT Barcelona, was eliminated in 10th place, and then Barnes went out in ninth. They both earned €20,600.
EPT Sanremo High Roller Final Table
| Seat | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kent Roed | 317,000 |
| 2 | Benny Spindler | 844,000 |
| 3 | Joseph Cheong | 392,000 |
| 4 | Joel Nordkvist | 1,205,000 |
| 5 | Keven Stammen | 744,000 |
| 6 | Igor Kurganov | 318,000 |
| 7 | Philipp Gruissem | 460,000 |
Tomorrow, play will resume at 2:00 PM local time. PokerNews will be right back on the floor with the live updates, so be sure to grab your seat on the virtual rail. We'll see you then!