The Surviving 488 Players Will All Gather Under One Roof for Day 2 Action
Welcome to Day 2 of the Season 10 European Poker Tour Vienna!
Two days ago, 341 players flooded the Hofburg Palace for Day 1a action, though just 182 players would survive the night. Yesterday, Day 1b attracted 560 entries, and after eight 75-minute levels of play, Danish player Mads Hansen emerged as chip leader of the surviving 306 players with 200,000, ahead of Day 1a chip leader Oleksii Khoroshenin who begins today with 171,900.
All told, 901 players have registered the Main Event, and 488 of those have advanced to Day 2. However, late registration is open until the start of play today, meaning both those numbers are likely to go up. In fact, a special Last Chance Hyper Turbo Super Satellite at last night created an additional five seats for Day 2, so the field will jump to at least 906 entrants.
Interestingly, tonight Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov returns to the €2,000 Eureka High Roller to finish his heads-up match against online sensation Niki Jedlicka. The two took a one-day break so they could both play the second starting flight. Jedlicka ended up busting midway through Day 1b, but Katchalov survived. Not only that, he is the highest-placed Team PokerStars Pro going in to Day 2. Other Team Pros who will be in action today include Marcel Luske, Henrique Pinho, Johnny Lodden, Maxim Lykov, Alex Kravchenko, Jan Heitmann, Liv Boeree, Marc-Andre Ladouceur, and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. Toss in Full Tilt Poker Professionals Viktor Blom and Gus Hansen, and it's shaping up to be quite the day.
Others who'll be in action today with big stacks are Olekssi Khoroshenin (171,900), Sergii Baranov (155,000), Joni Jouhkimainen (154,500), Dominik Nitsche (138,000), Jonathan Roy (130,800), Vladimir Geshkenbein (130,000), Kevin MacPhee (128,000), and the recent Eureka Poker Tour Vienna Main Event champ Zoltan Gal (135,100).
Action is set to kick off at Noon local time, which is about 90 minutes from now. We're not 100% sure, but we think the plan for the day is to play six levels with no dinner break. Join us shortly as we bring you all the action and eliminations from the Hofburg Palace. In the meantime, check out Krist Arnett's guided tour of Vienna: