Masliankou Leads Final 8 of the EPT Sochi 2019 National

That's a wrap for Day 2 of the EPT National! Yury Masliankou finished top of the counts and will return tomorrow with 5,260,000 chips in play. Giorgiy Skhulukhiya (4,145,000) returns in second place and Leonid Bilokur (3,210,000) rounds out the top three.

Daniil Lukin, Andrey Lukyanov, Alexandr Sergutin, Kartik Ved and Sarkis Karabadzhakyan are all still in contention and with RUB 9,317,000 ($139,755) up top, we don't expect anyone to give up without a fight.

Seat	Name	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	Yury Masliankou	Belarus	5,260,000	105
2	Kartik Ved	India	1,385,000	28
3	Leonid Bilokur	Russia	3,210,000	64
4	Daniil Lukin	Russia	2,595,000	52
5	Andrey Lukyanov	Russia	2,380,000	48
6	Sarkis Karabadzhakyan	Russia	670,000	13
7	Giorgiy Skhulukhiya	Russia	4,145,000	83
8	Alexandr Sergutin	Russia	1,985,000	40

The Day began with 108 players that had made it through from the three starting flights and all of them were guaranteed a mincash of RUB 122,500 ($1,895). Over almost 10 hours of play, Masliankou is the man who will start in front. In the biggest hand of the tournament so far, he took the chip lead from Skhulukhiya in the last hand of Level 25. Masliankou took a chunk of Skhulukhiya's chips after six-betting all in and Skhulukhiya thought long and hard before folding. The Belarussian held onto that lead for the remainder of the day and starts with a quarter of the chips in play, which is double the average. Not bad at all.

It was an exciting day of poker from the start with a slew of eliminations before the first break. Matous Houzvicek began with the chip lead and had a strong start for the first few levels but the tide turned and Houzvicek lost a series of pots that chipped away at his stack. One of the biggest setbacks was in a clash with Kartik Ved. Ved moved all in on the river with four clubs down and Houzvicek let it go. He was unable to recover from there.

Houzvicek wasn't the only big name to exit during Day 2, with Team PokerStars Pro Mikhail Shalamov eliminated before the first break. Kiryl Radzivonau, Aleksandr Denisov, Dmitry Yurasov and Day 1b joint chip leaders Yaniv Peretz and Andrey Chernokoz, were just some of the notables to fall by the wayside during Day 2.

With 40 minutes and 47 seconds left on the clock for Level 26, the final table was reached. It came at the expense of Artur Martirosyan who three-bet all in from the small blind against Daniil Lukin's cutoff open and ran ace-jack into pocket queens. It wasn't long after the final table redraw that we saw the last elimination of the night. Sergey Petrushevskiy moved all in with ace-ten for a total of 10 big blinds over an open by Alexandr Sergutin and ran into pocket rockets. He earned RUB 700,000 ($10,500) for his 9th place result.

Tomorrow the eight remaining finalists return at 12pm on 24th March to continue their campaign. Play resumes at Level 27 with blinds at 30,000/60,000 and a big blind ante of 60,000.

Join PokerNews for all the action from the moment cards are in the air until the new EPT Sochi 2019 National Champion is crowned.

Position	Payout (CSU)	Payout (RUB)	Payout (USD)
1	CSU 133,100	RUB 9,317,000	$139,755
2	CSU 81,500	RUB 5,705,000	$85,575
3	CSU 58,100	RUB 4,067,000	$61,005
4	CSU 43,700	RUB 3,059,000	$45,885
5	CSU 34,400	RUB 2,408,000	$36,120
6	CSU 25,800	RUB 1,806,000	$27,090
7	CSU 18,500	RUB 1,295,000	$19,425
8	CSU 12,700	RUB 889,000	$13,335