Maksym Panyak Leads, Aleksii Khoroshenin Still in Contention
The second day of the Live Events International Cyprus Main Event was again a day full of exciting poker action. The day started with 131 survivors from the 285 who started Day 1a and 1b combined. That number wasn't final yet, though, as players were still able to enter and reenter for the first three one-hour levels. And so they did, as the tournament clock read 331 after registration officially closed.
With 331 entries, the total prize pool grew to $433,445, one of the biggest poker tournaments to have ever been organized on Cypriot soil. The $200,000 guaranteed the Live Events International organization put on the event was shattered, and tournament director Thomas Kremser announced that 27 players would get in the money, with the winner walking away with an impressive $102,000.
There were no payouts rewarded on Day 2, as eight levels of play wasn't enough to reach the bubble. Thirty-two players will return to the beautiful poker room of Noah's Ark Resort on Tuesday, and the first hurdle they'll have to take is reaching the money, followed by reaching the 10-handed final table. Whats more is that a winner has to be crowned on this final day of play as well. With a 51-big blind average stack, that might prove a big task.
A lot of the familiar names won't be returning to action, as they fell far before the end of the day. Sergey Rybachenko, who wasn't seen using his iPad once this tournament — a unique thing — reentered at the start of the day after busting on Day 1b. He couldn't spin his 30 big blinds into a deep run, and left not long after registration closed. The same could be said about Vladimir Troyanovskiy, though the Russian high roller had a decent stack at one point, but it didn't last.
European Poker Tour Vienna champion Oleksii Khoroshenin did live up to the high hopes. He started out as one of the top stacks and ended the day with an above-average pile of chips — 574,000 with blinds at 3,000/6,000 to make for the fifth stack overall.
Of the 331 entries, just two of those came from a lady. Nataliya Iakovleva entered twice, but won't be one of the players cashing in this event. After already playing a very memorable hand on Day 1 where she quintupled after flopping top set, she again played a hand she won't easily forget. Iakovleva got it in with the 
before the flop against two opponents who both had pocket eights. Iakovleva flopped as good as she could without hitting when the 
fell. She was a 75% favorite to triple up, but the turn was the worst card in the deck for her, the 
. Her chances of tripling were slashed down to a mere 19%, and the 
on the river wasn't one of the cards she had left to hit.
One of the bigger stacks at the start of Day 3 will be Igor Ovcharenko's. He gathered chips left and right, and every now and then he sent someone home. Oleksandr Zlotnik was one of his victims, and the Ukrainian will most likely remember that one for a while. Zlotnik flopped trips with king-jack, only to see Ovcharenko make runner-runner straight with nine-ten suited.
With 633,000 in chips, Ovcharenko is second in chips, meaning there's only one person better right now. The absolute top stack belongs to Maksym Panyak, who gathered 1,009,500. Like Troyanovskiy, Panyak was seen playing poker on his iPad, and he even had two iPad tablets in front of him at one point while crushing the tournament. Panyak was busy playing open-face Chinese poker on his iPad and busting out players on the live felt.
With 32 players remaining, the bubble is just five eliminations away. Day 3 will begin at 1 p.m. local time, and PokerNews is on site again to bring you coverage till there's a winner.