Day 2 in the Bag
A full EPT event's worth of players returned to the Casino Municipale this afternoon, and those 620 players were just half of the total starting field from this record-setting PokerStars.it EPT San Remo. Six levels came and went with players dropping off the board at a brisk pace. In fact, we were nearly able to reach the money bubble at 184 this evening, but we'll have to settle that little bursting issue early tomorrow instead. In total, it looks like just at 200 players survived this second day.
It was, overall, not such a great day for the Team PokerStars Pros. Pieter de Korver had a rather short day, as did his fellow Dutchman Lex Veldhuis, who is still nursing some broken body parts from his sparring training sessions. Also extinct through the course of the day were Brit JP Kelly, Italian Dario Minieri, Brazilian Andre Akkari, and Germans Michael Keiner and Sandra Naujoks. Just as the final hands were being dealt, the not-so-chipper-this-week Luca Pagano also made a quiet exit.
On the flip side of things, we have a few familiar names on the good half of the busto-or-robusto see-saw. EPT Snowfest winner Allan B?kke must be doing a lot right, because he was in that familiar front-running position for the bulk of the day here on the other side of the Alps. Steve "gboro780" Gross had himself a whale of a day, as did the ever-dangerous ElkY. EPT regular Yury Kerzhapkin is well overdue to "bink" something (as they say in Russia), and he's also among the chip leaders heading into the meat of the tournament. At the end of the night, it appears Dmitry Stelmak edged his way into the top spot. He finished with about 670,000 chips, and we couldn't spot anyone who could challenge that. We'll have to wait for the official chip counts before we're willing to put our necks out and call it though.
So, that's all we have for tonight. We hope you enjoyed it, and we hope to see you right back here tomorrow at noon local time. Until then, buonanotte!