Farrell Leads the Final 85 Players in €5,300 Main Event After Day 2
It was an action-packed day in the €5,300 Main Event at the 2022 PokerStars European Poker Tour presented by Monte-Carlo Casino with over 12 hours of poker being played. Over the course of six and a half levels, the field was dwindled down from 332 players to just 85 by the time chips went into the bag.
Leading the way is none other than Niall Farrell who bagged a whopping 1,175,000, winning one of the larger hands of the tournament in the last couple of hands of the night. The Scottish poker pro already has one EPT Main Event title from back in 2015 in Malta where he took home over €530,000. There is still a long way to go, but grabbing an elusive second EPT title would not only tie him for the most ever, but would also be his largest career tournament victory.
Farrell will be joined atop the leaderboard by Ferenc Deak (1,137,000) and Ole Schemion (1,046,000) as the only players with a seven-figure chip stack. Deak spent the last two hours on the feature table where he accumulated the majority of his chips, while Schemion made an impressive comeback from less than 50,000 chips in the opening level of Day 2.
The day began with 332 players in their seats after a few late entries before registration closed. Many of the short stacks quickly hit the rail and would do so throughout the first few levels. The money bubble started to loom as dinner break approached and the action came to a screeching halt. One of the biggest stories of the day belonged to Ana Marquez who was down to just 17,000 chips on the bubble but managed to spin up a stack of 442,000 by the day's end.
Some notables to hit the rail before even getting a sniff at the money bubble included Victoria Cohen Mitchell, Dominik Nitsche, Kitty Kuo, Mustapha Kanit, Andre Akkari, and Patrick Antonius. Cohen Mitchell was looking to become the only three-time EPT winner but unfortunately, that will have to wait for another time.
Just two players off of the money, Harpreet Gill and Danny Pyke were both eliminated at the same time before the hand-for-hand process could even begin. That burst the money just moments before players went on dinner break and the short stacks quickly followed them out the door after securing a min-cash.
Another comeback story from Day 2 belonged to Gaelle Baumann who had a rollercoaster of a day. Baumann picked up a pot on the first hand of the day but just 10 minutes later, found herself down to just seven big blinds after losing a key all-in pot to Julien Martini. Baumann didn't falter though as she managed to find an above-average bag of 464,000 at the end of the day. Martini, on the other hand, wound up with just 170,000 but will be returning for Day 3.
A few notable to reach the money but will not be moving on to Day 3 include Davidi Kitai, Leo Margets, Timothy Adams, Rainer Kempe, Benjamin Spragg, and 2021 WSOP Main Event champion Koray Aldemir.
The action is slated to resume at 12 p.m. noon on Thursday, May 5 with just 85 players returning to their seats. It is expected that they will be playing another six and a half levels with a 20-minute break after every level and a half. The PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the tournament floor to bring you all of the live updates throughout the Main Event.