Sam El Sayed Leads Into Day 3
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131 players came back today with the volatile Chino Rheem leading with 291,500 in chips way ahead of Maxim Panyak who was in second place with 255,800. But at the end of five 90 minute levels, it was Sam El Sayed who finished at the top of the surviving 53 runners with 375,500 – just 4,000 ahead of Erik Cajelais. El Sayed had been one of the big stacks coming into the day but quietly took the chip lead right at the death despite other stacks having peaked over the 450,000 at points during the day.
We were expecting fireworks early on especially with Rheem sitting next to the 3rd placed Hüsnü Sincar. But the early action was elsewhere as two former EPT champions in Martin Finger and Nicolas Chouity clashed, the latter coming off worse running into the German's top set and getting eliminated.
Michael Mizrachi, who was briefly chip leader on Day 1b was also an early casualty leaving brother Robert as the sole representative from the Mizrachi clan to go into Day 3, he has 365,000 which is enough to put him in third place for now. Gaelle Baumann also disappeared earlier than she'd hoped, her 
being outpipped by El Sayed's 
.
There were a lot of casualties including Tuan Le, Lukas Berglund, Toni Judet and former November Niner Kelly Kim. We guess they'll just have to spend the rest of the week in glorious weather in this all-inclusive hotel, eating and drinking for free. So even though they're out, they're winners of a sort.
Tomorrow we'll be playing through the bubble and possibly down as far as the last two tables. Once again we'll be start at 1pm with 53 remaining, only 36 get paid though so expect the bubble to burst about halfway through the day.
The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will see you tomorrow!