There is something about record-setting fields that brings out the best in Eliot Hudon.
In December 2022, the then 25-year-old Canadian burst onto the poker scene when he won the WPT World Championship in Las Vegas for $4.1 million, the largest event ever on that tour. Fast forward 14 months later to the 2024 PokerStars European Poker Tour Paris Main Event, the sixth-largest EPT field in history and the largest outside of Barcelona, and Hudon is again on top as 222 players advance to Day 3.
Hudon eliminated Ignacio Molina on the bubble with queens versus jacks to take the chip lead (and Molina’s rubber duck card protector) with 955,000 when play resumes tomorrow for Day 3 inside the Le Palais des Congres. Alexios Zervos is in second place with 788,000 after earning a massive double up when his pocket aces held up on the river against Bernhard Binder’s pair, straight, and flush draws. Eero Rantala hit a set of nines on the flop to earn a double knockout and would’ve been the end-of-day chip leader if not for taking a bad beat against Ruida Lin on one of the last hands of Day 2; he ended up still comfortably in the top five with 685,000.
Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eliot Hudon | Canada | 955,000 | 191 |
| 2 | Alexios Zervos | Greece | 788,000 | 158 |
| 3 | Matthias Lipp | Austria | 714,000 | 143 |
| 4 | David Kaufmann | Germany | 700,000 | 140 |
| 5 | Eero Rantala | Finland | 685,000 | 137 |
| 6 | Farid Jattin | Colombia | 660,000 | 132 |
| 7 | Clement Michaud | France | 606,000 | 121 |
| 8 | Daniel Custodio | Portugal | 587,000 | 117 |
| 9 | Alessandro Minasi | Italy | 574,000 | 115 |
| 10 | Eric Sfez | France | 551,000 | 110 |
Matthias Lipp (714,000) and David Kaufmann (700,000) round out the top five. Other big stacks include Farid Jattin (660,000), Sirzat Hissou (512,000), Barny Boatman (510,000), and Sergi Reixach (469,000). Further down are Leon Sturm (434,000), EPT champion Dimitar Danchev (415,000), Aleksejs Ponakovs (404,000), Alex Keating (391,000), Day 1 chip leader Gregory Fournier (386,000), Sam Greenwood (379,000), and Timothy Adams (279,000).
Past EPT champions Anton Wigg (343,000), Robin Ylitalo (329,000), Arsenii Karmatckii (305,000), Tom Middleton (151,000), Nicolas Dumont (87,000), and Aliaksei Boika (73,000) are also still in the mix. EPT Prague champion Padraig O’Neill survived with 290,000 as he seeks to become the first player ever to go back-to-back on the EPT, while EPT Barcelona champion and the newest Team PokerStars Pro Simon Wiciak bagged up 119,000. Last year’s EPT Paris runner-up Peter Jorgne ended up with 353,000, while Team PokerStars Pro Benjamin Spragg finished near the bottom with 138,000.
Day 2 began with 86 new entries joining 558 Day 1 survivors to create a total field of 1,747 and prize pool of €8,385,600. Notables to bust early included Parker Talbot, Hossein Ensan, EPT champions Kalidou Sow and Steve O’Dwyer, Sam Grafton, Maria Ho, Fintan Hand, Bryn Kenney, and defending champion Razvan Belea. Only the top 255 players would finish in the money, and Hudon took care of that by busting Molina in 256th. Juan Pardo (226th), and last year’s finalist Johan Schultz-Pedersen (253rd) were among those to sneak past the bubble and earn a min-cash.
Day 3 begins at noon local time tomorrow with 60 minutes remaining in Level 16 with blinds of 2,500-5,000 and a 5,000 big blind ante. Now that the bubble has burst, players can finally sense that the final table and first prize of €1,287,800 are slowly drawing nearer to being a reality.
PokerNews will be back following all the action on Day 3 as the field continues to whittle down here in the City of Lights.
