Mantas Visockis Leads After Day 2
It took six 75-minute levels to reach the end of Day 2. It sounds like a short and easy day but it was nothing like that. Many big pots, suckouts, and preflop five-bets later there are just 113 remaining players with Mantas Visockis on top with 522,200. Mike 'Timex' McDonald and Chris Moorman are also near the top with 422,100 and 380,300 chips respectively.
The day started with a bang as Martin Jacobson was quickly eliminated by David Vamplew and Matt Perrins lost all his chips to Mikhail Korotkikh. Both Vamplew and Korotkikh made it to the third day of play. PokerStars Team Online and former EPT Copenhagen winner Mickey Petersen ran ace-king into pocket tens and he was also gone within the first level.
Team PokerStars Pro Isaac Haxton found his seat today at the toughest table in the room and it was Teddy Sheringham who eliminated him. Haxton got his chips into the pot with ace-jack and that was not enough to beat the football legend's ace-king. Sheringham survived Day 2 with 87,5090 chips and he looks to be heading to his fifth ever EPT cash and third EPT London in-the-money finish.
Full Tilt's Professional Tom Dwan showed up as late as possible and with a stack blinded down to 10,200 he started this event. It didn't last long for the online phenomenon who was knocked out within his first level of play. Fellow high stakes regular Sam Trickett was eliminated early on, he ran ace-king into queens.
The eliminations added up quickly as Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel was also knocked out. The World Series of Poker Main Event winner lost with jacks against ace-queen in a preflop all in. Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano and EPT final table record holder lost pocket fours against ace-queen and that means that he's still looking for his first EPT cash in Season 9 with just three events to go.
Mike McDonald started the upward trend about halfway through the day but at that point he was still far behind Moorman. The man that plays online under the handle "Moorman1" was the number one in the tournament for quite some time after he rivered a full house in a big three-way pot.
For the longest time it seemed like Team PokerStars Pro Lex Veldhuis was headed for Day 3 but eventually he ran into McDonald. The Canadian EPT Dortmund winner flopped trips against Veldhuis' aces and this pot sky-rocketed him to the top of the counts. The first player to crack the 400,000-chip mark was Estonian Matthias Tikerpe who knocked out Niels van Alphen when both players rivered a flush.
Another Dutchman was involved in a crucial pot today as Paul Berende was very unlucky in a pot that gave Full Tilt's Professional Viktor Blom the chip lead. Berende got his money in with kings on a seven-high flop but the Swede rivered his gutshot to take down this pot. Michael Tureniec wasn't as lucky as his fellow countryman and he busted to Team PokerStars Pro Theo Jorgensen with ace-queen to pocket eights. Jorgensen ended the day on 333,500.
Other big pros to have made it through to Day 3 are David Vamplew (150,000), Philipp Gruissem (129,700), Anton Wigg (90,300), Moorman (380,300) and Team PokerStars Pro's Jason Mercier (147,800), Leo Margets (75,400), Jorgensen (333,500), Sandra Naujoks (71,600), David Williams (134,000), Vicky Coren (33,800) and Marcel Luske (196,200).
Play will resume tomorrow at 12:00 PM GMT as we will play our way into the money! Make sure to tune back in to PokerNews.com as we bring you all the live updates throughout the day.