Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden Leads After Day 2
Day 2 of the 2013 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo? Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final has concluded following an exciting six levels of play that saw many of poker's hottest players rise to the top of the pack. At the beginning of the day, 268 hopefuls returned to felt, but that number was trimmed to about 110. Topping those advancing to Day 3 was Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden with 605,200 in chips.
While the tournament hasn't reached the money just yet, the prize pool has been released. The eventual winner of this year's event will take home a pocket-bursting €1.224 million from the €5.31 million prize pool. The champion will also receive a brilliantly-crafted watch worth more than €5,000 from Slyde. The top 80 spots are set to pay out, with a min-cash worth €16,000.
Out of all that happened on Day 2, one thing is for certain: the EPT Grand Final will be crowning a brand new champion for 2013. Nicolas Chouity was the winner in 2010, and one of two former winners returning to play on Wednesday, but he fell during the first half of the day. Last year's winner, Mohsin Charania, was the only other former champion of this event, but his run came to an end in the final level of the night.
With the blinds at 1,200/2,400/300 in Level 14, Charania ran pocket nines into the pocket tens of five-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner John Juanda. The money went in preflop and five community cards weren't enough to save Charania. Juanda went on to finish with 181,300 in chips.
With the biggest story of the day being the thriving of some of the biggest names in the game, the top portion of the leader board was cluttered with superstars wielding big stacks when play wrapped up. Calvin Anderson (472,600), Oleksii Kovalchuk (414,200), Steve O'Dwyer (389,200), Freddy Deeb (350,200), Paul Volpe (256,500) and Andrew Lichtenberger (227,300) were just a handful of the big names to amass large stacks.
Team PokerStars Pro was also very well represented. Daniel Negreanu (340,100), Jason Mercier (321,900), Jake Cody (223,300), Marcin Horecki (137,800) and Chad Brown (115,900) were a couple of those donning the red spade to finish out the day strong.
On the flip side side of the deal were Team Pros Barry Greenstein, Marcel Luske, Humberto Brenes, Leo Fernandez, Angel Guillen and Vicky Coren — all of whom were eliminated. Luske has been victorious in his last five events that he has cashed in, but he wouldn't be winning this event or cashing in it after falling at the hands of Luke Schwartz.
During Level 9 with the blinds at 400/800/100, the "Flying Dutchman" put in a big three-bet to 8,500 after Calvin Anderson had opened to 1,600 and Charbel Salloum flat-called. Action then folded to Schwartz in the big blind, and he four-bet to 15,000. Anderson and Salloum got out of the way, but Luske put in the call to see the 
flop. Schwartz fired enough to put Luske all in, and Luske stuck in his last 15,000 or so to put himself at risk. When the cards were tabled, Schwartz's 
was beating Luske's 
, and his hand held after the 
turn and 
river.
Day 3 will commence at 12 p.m. local time in Monaco, and you can expect things to really heat up with the money bubble on the verge of bursting. Be sure to return right here to PokerNews for all of the live coverage from the first shuffle until the last hand of the night.