Day 2 of the 2023 Merit Poker Gangster Series $2,200 Warm Up has reached a conclusion here at the Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. After another eight hour-long levels of play Andrei Daniliuk has emerged as the overall chip leader, bagging 2,175,000 chips worth 218 big blinds. He is most closely followed by Lithuania's Vladas Burneikis (1,871,000) and Lebanon's Hadi Khadra (1.866.000).
Daniliuk started today with the fourth-biggest stack and was one among the chip leaders in the room throughout the day. Towards the later levels he skyrocketed up the counts, which according to Daniliuk was the result of him flopping a full house and winning a colossal three-way all in.
Clearly adept at navigating large tournament fields, Daniliuk has just over $1,500,000 in live tournament earnings to his name. That includes a first-place finish in a $2,200 event here in Cyprus in 2022 for $21,420, as well as a fourth-place finish in a €10,000 event at the 2011 EPT Madrid for €400,000 ($593,692).
Day 2 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andrei Daniliuk | Russian Federation | 2,175,000 | 218 |
| 2 | Vladas Burneikis | Lithuania | 1,871,000 | 187 |
| 3 | Hadi Khadra | Lebanon | 1,866,000 | 187 |
| 4 | Bakhos Joumaa | Lebanon | 1,696,000 | 170 |
| 5 | Razvan Sabau | Romania | 1,366,000 | 137 |
| 6 | Leonid Sidelkovskiy | Russian Federation | 1,203,000 | 120 |
| 7 | Feyzullah Karaarslan | Turkey | 1,188,000 | 119 |
| 8 | Damir Gabdullin | Russian Federation | 1,074,000 | 107 |
| 9 | Tugce Hursoz | Turkey | 1,052,000 | 105 |
| 10 | Sultan Meirbekov | Kazakhstan | 923,000 | 92 |
Day 2 began with 175 players. Late registration was available for the first four levels of the day during which approximately 60 more players joined. That brought the field to 453 total entrants by the time late registration had closed to generate a prize pool of $833,520. Of those initial entrants, 79 players managed to bag and tag at the end of the night and will advance to tomorrow's Day 3.
The slow structure of the tournament ensured there was plenty of time to maneuver and several of the bigger stacks to start the day got off to a hot start. Inas Eldeghedy won a sizable pot with pocket aces early in the day to put herself among the chip leaders. In another early highlight, Day 1a chip leader Mustafa Sancak rivered a flush to crack Zhun Wang's pocket kings and become the first player to surpass one million chips. Both players were not able to sustain their momentum and would ultimately bust in the later levels of the day.
As the blinds increased later in the evening the action picked up significantly with many players hitting the rail while others put themselves in prime positions to make a deep run. In one noteworthy example, Sultan Meirbekov hero called on the river with pocket kings to surge up the chip counts. In another highlight later in the evening, Razvan Sabau scored a double knockout to take down a massive pot. Both players would end up as one of the top ten biggest stacks in the room by the end of the night.
Some notables to advance to Day 3 today include Benjamin Hamnett (789,000), Day 1b chip leader Dmitry Yurasov (741,000), Day 1c chip leader Arun Sood (463,000), Ankit Ahuja (414,000) and Guoliang Wei (167,000). Others not as fortunate to survive Day 2 include Halil Tasyurek, Selahaddin Bedir and Victor Yugay.
Day 3 begins tomorrow November 25 at 12:00 p.m. local time and is scheduled to play ten hour-long levels, with blinds starting at 5,000/10,000 with a 10,000 big blind ante. As always, stay tuned to PokerNews for all the updates for this event until a winner is crowned on November 26.
