With the Day 2 of the 2016 888live Austria Main Event only a few hours away, the 67 survivors from yesterday’s starting flight are all getting ready to head back to the Casino Innsbruck and fight to secure their share of the €41,820 prize pool on tap.

High stakes poker player and poker strategy guru Alec Torelli will start Day 2 comfortably in the lead, with a stack of 138,000 in chips. As he told us yesterday, Torelli found out about the 888live event in Innsbruck while he was enjoying some time off in Milan with his wife - did you know Alec LOVES doors? - and decided to come here to have a look at the event.

“My wife and I were in Milan and we decided to head up to Innsbruck as she always wanted to bring me here," Torelli explained. "We've heard about the first 888poker event of the year so we said 'why not?'. I got here two hours late but I think things went really went well for me today. I had an amazing run of cards and made a couple of good reads - so, here I am on top of the count!"

Although Torelli is one of the most experienced players still in the Main Event, he will have to follow every single one of the strategy tips he published here on PokerNews over the years - as he is not the only one who is heading back to the casino to fight for the title and the €11,710 top cash prize.

Need any examples? With the second-biggest stack in play, Eliot Hirn is well-determined to best his biggest score so far, a 4th-place finish at the Barriere Poker Tour Ribeauvillé in 2013.

Also, three-time WSOP bracelet winner and 888poker pro Dominik Nitsche is still in and is looking for a way to forget his unsuccessful adventure in Australia earlier this year. ”I busted the Aussie Million so quickly that I decided to spend few days at home and now I'm here playing the 888live Main Event. The atmosphere is awesome here, people are so friendly and I have to admit that I got unused to playing with german speaking poker players, but it's nice and I wish there were more tournaments here."

Amongst the day's short stacks there is also the other 888poker pro in play, Sweden’s Sofia Lovgren. “Unfortunately, I've been without good cards all day and I finished with approximately 19,000 chips. I made a few steals and a couple of bluffs to stay in play so tomorrow I'll have to risk something. However, this has been a lot of fun so far!"

The Day 2 starts at 14:00 UTC+1. Make sure you follow PokerNews for all your live updates from the first 888live event of 2016.