Joyce Leads 72 Survivors; Colillas Last Red Spade In Contention After Day 2
The 2020 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Online $5,200 Main Event is one step closer to crowning a champion and a large influx of late entries prior to the start boosted the field to 1,304 entries, including 924 unique entries and 380 re-entries. Once the dust had settled for Day 2, a portion of the $6,520,000 prize pool has already been paid out as the money bubble burst with 159 players remaining.
From there on, the eliminations came at a very rapid and consistent pace, and 72 hopefuls remain in contention for the $1,019,082 top prize. Irishman Toby "sadface111" Joyce won't have made a sad face when the final hand had wrapped up, as he mounted a late surge to claim the top spot with a stack of 11,706,697. Only two other players have eight-figure stack sizes to their name including Viacheslav "VbV1990" Buldygin (10,340,384) and "TTWIST" (10,318,673).
Other notables within the top 20 include "DingeBrinker" (7,976,469), Andreas "daskalos20" Christoforou (7,950,893), Fabio "hdjgkfkgsdl" Sperling (7,928,512), Liviu "0Human0" Ignat (7,745,169), Jon "apestyles" Van Fleet (7,659,083), Nuno "BrigaDatada" Capucho (7,650,210), Timothy "Tim0thee" Adams (7,337,601), 2015 EPT Prague runner-up Gleb "Ti0373" Tremzin (6,561,672), and Christopher "Apotheosis92" Kruk (6,127,549).
The Top 10 After Day 2 of the EPT Online $5,200 Main Event
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toby "sadface11" Joyce | Ireland | 11,706,697 | 146 |
| 2 | Viacheslav "VbV1990" Buldygin | Russia | 10,340,384 | 129 |
| 3 | TTWIST | Canada | 10,318,673 | 129 |
| 4 | Ruslancheeck | Russia | 9,358,684 | 117 |
| 5 | PANIC.PLAYER | Greece | 8,130,682 | 102 |
| 6 | XxLimao99xX | Germany | 7,989,896 | 100 |
| 7 | DingeBrinker | Estonia | 7,976,469 | 100 |
| 8 | Andreas "daskalos20" Christoforou | Cyprus | 7,950,893 | 99 |
| 9 | Fabio "hdjgkfkgsdl" Sperling | Germany | 7,928,512 | 99 |
| 10 | Liviu "0human0" Ignat | Romania | 7,745,169 | 97 |
The sole remaining PokerStars ambassador in contention is the 2019 PokerStars Players Championship winner Ramon "RamonColillas" Colillas, who advanced with a stack of 2,874,265. Fintan "easywithaces" Hand was the only other red spade to finish in the money and bowed out in 134th place for $11,757.51.
The Action of the Day
With many players opting to enter prior to the start of Day 2 and aiming to run up a stack of just over 20 big blinds, the field was cut down considerably within the first two levels. Inside the first half an hour, the PokerStars ambassador team was cut in half: Felix "xflixx" Schneiders ran into a dominating ace, Kalidou "KalidouSow" Sow lost a flip with pocket tens versus ace-king and Ben "Spraggy" Spragg jammed his short stack with ace-queen into pocket aces.
The PokerStars EPT4Charity contest winner Jay "Blackoid" Kennedy was also among the very early casualties when his three-bet jam with ace-six came up second-best against ace-king. After the initial 45 minutes of play, only 344 contenders were still in the mix during the first scheduled break.
Big names such as Christoph "26071985" Vogelsang, Kenny "SpaceyFCB" Hallaert, Ludovic "ludovi333" Geilich, two-time SCOOP Main Event winner Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza, reigning 2020 WCOOP Main Event winner Andre "PTFisherman23" Marques, Steve "Mr. Tim Caum" O'Dwyer, Mike "gorodski" Gorodinsky, and Andrey "ThePateychuk" Pateychuk followed.
Only 256 players had chips at their disposal on the second break and that number was then cut down to 160 on the third break, as the stone-cold money bubble had been reached. No longer in contention by then was Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis, who lost the remainder of his short stack with queen-ten versus ace-queen.
The Finnish high stakes regulars Jens "Jeans89" Kyllonen, Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden and Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro all missed out on the money, and Lander "tua133" Lijo had his kings cracked two off the money. Ultimately, it was the UK's "bartowskiFR" who ended up as the bubble boy when pocket tens came up short against a straight and flush draw.
Fintan "easywithaces" Hand, who started the day with the lead, suffered two major setbacks against Scott "Aggro Santos" Margereson and eventually collected a min-cash when he lost a flip with pocket sevens against ace-jack suited. The Irishman joined the EPT4Charity efforts and will be donating 5% of his cash to the CLIC Sargent charity of Jay "Blackoid" Kennedy, among others.
The #EPT4Charity dream has come to an end. Our judge, @EasyWithAces committed 5% of his #EPTOnline Main Event to… https://t.co/X3mFgqC45x
— PokerNews (@PokerNews)
As the field raced towards the end of the day in a frantic post-bubble period, several former EPT Main Event champions missed out on a chance to win a second title in the virtual arena. Robin "robinho" Ylitalo (138th place), Arsenii "josef_shvejk" Karmatckii (108th place), Aliaksei "ale6ka" Boika (107th place), and Noah "Exclusive" Boeken (100th place) all came up short of making Day 3.
Rob "batoelrob" Hollink (3,747,007) remains in contention for the double and former runner-ups Tremzin and Marton "noirduck" Czuczor (3,266,790) will aim to finish one spot better this time around. Plenty of talented high stakes regulars still have a shot at the title as well and the penultimate day promises plenty of excitement.
Stay tuned to find out who makes it to the nine-handed final table with resuming blinds of 40,000/80,000 and a big blind ante of 10,000 when the action gets back underway at 1.05 p.m. EST on Tuesday, November 17th, 2020. The PokerNews team will provide live updates from start to finish on a security delay of 30 minutes according to the cards-up broadcast on the PokerStars YouTube and Twitch channels.