Lee Leads 117 Players After Day 2 of €5,300 EPT Prague Main Event
It's been a record-breaking festival at the 2022 PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague being held at the Hilton Hotel Prague and that trend continued on Day 2 when late registration closed for the €5,300 EPT Prague Main Event. A total of 1,267 entries were recorded before the action began on Day 2 and just 117 players remain after a full 12 hours of poker.
Bursting through to the top of the leaderboard was Jaesung Lee who bagged up a monstrous stack of 1,132,000, the only player to end the day in the seven-figure category. Lee started to emerge as one of the big stacks in the early levels and continued an upward trend throughout the day, including doing his part to burst the money bubble.
Lee managed to pick off a bluff from Yulian Bogdanov in order to double up and position himself well for the money bubble that was quickly approaching. On the bubble, Lee got involved in a heavily weighted side pot with fellow big stack Robert Cowen. The Korean flopped a set of tens in a four-bet pot and cracked the pocket aces of his opponent while eliminating one of the short stacks to push the field into the money.
Lee, who doesn't have many live tournament scores recorded on his resume, has already locked up the largest of his career heading into Day 3. This will be his first five-figure result but he is hoping to turn that into even more as the following days progress.
There are two PokerStars ambassadors remaining in the field heading to Day 3 and they currently sit on opposite ends of the chip counts. Parker Talbot finished the night at the feature table and put 960,000 chips into the bag, good enough for second place. Ramon Colillas is the other ambassador but will be heading into Day 3 as one of the short stacks with just 62,000 chips.
Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 2 of EPT Main Event Prague
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jaesung Lee | Korea | 1,132,000 | 189 |
| 2 | Parker Talbot | Canada | 960,000 | 160 |
| 3 | Javier Gomez Zapatero | Spain | 891,000 | 149 |
| 4 | Luigi D'Alterio | Italy | 870,000 | 145 |
| 5 | Simon Lofberg | Sweden | 813,000 | 136 |
| 6 | Timothy Adams | Canada | 759,000 | 127 |
| 7 | Bleron Maliqi | Switzerland | 669,000 | 112 |
| 8 | Laurent Cessy | France | 665,000 | 111 |
| 9 | Jerry Odeen | Sweden | 654,000 | 109 |
| 10 | Pierre De Almeida | France | 646,000 | 108 |
Day 2 Action
There were 397 players that returned to their seats from Day 1a/b and they were joined by 40 late entries who started the day with a fresh stack of 30,000 chips. A total of 918 unique entries were recorded along with 349 re-entries, bringing the total to 1,267 entries that created a prizepool of €6,144,950.
The action was fast and furious right from the start with over 100 players being eliminated in the opening level. Some of the notables that fell by the wayside in the early going included PokerStars ambassadors Sam Grafton, Alejandro Lococo, and Benjamin Spragg. While the money bubble wasn't expected to burst until the end of Day 2, it actually happened rather painlessly before the dinner break.
Upon returning for the fifth level of the day, the field was just three eliminations away from bursting the bubble. On the very first hand, three players were eliminated including Saar Wilf, Felix Weis, and Auez Yeltubayev. Without even having to go hand-for-hand, the field broke into the money and the remaining 183 players were all guaranteed a min-cash of €8,550.
Over the course of the final two levels on the day, many of the short stacks were forced to the payout desk including Jason Wheeler, Cowen, Sam Greenwood, Pablo Brito Silva, and Julien Sitbon. Heading into Day 3, the final 117 players have locked up €11,450 but will have their sights set on the first-place prize of €1,054,500 and the infamous EPT trophy.
Some familiar faces to keep an eye on going forward include Javier Gomez Zapatero (891,000), Timothy Adams (759,000), Jerry Odeen (654,000), Conor Beresford (523,000), Gaelle Baumann (401,000), Juan Pardo (188,000), and Mike Watson (158,000).
The action is scheduled to kick off at 12 p.m. local time tomorrow for Day 3 with another 5 or 6 levels expected to be played. The players will be returning to level 17 with the blinds at 3,000/6,000 and a 6,000 big blind ante. The levels will continue to be 90 minutes in length but the 30-second shot clock will be put into play at the start of Day 3.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the tournament floor to bring you all of the live updates from another thrilling day at the EPT Prague festival.