EPT Grand Final Day 2

Day 1B of the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Madrid surpassed all expectations, attracting another 549 entries. Team PokerStars pro Ruben Visser dominated the action to enter Day 2 as the overall chip leader, but unfortunately for Visser his sizable lead didn’t hold. The 299 remaining EPT Grand Final hopefuls that returned today for Day 2 were playing hard and fast, and as a result only 104 competitors still have a seat going into Day 3. While Visser is still hanging on, he’s no longer anywhere near the top.

Now sitting pretty in the chip leader position formerly held by Visser is the young (as in too young to play in a live American tournament) Norwegian player Ole Kristian Nergard. With 726,000 chips, Nergard is doing well but has hardly blown the rest of the competition away. In fact, he’s less than 25,000 chips ahead of the second place stack that currently belongs to online pro Kristoffer “Sumpas” Thorsson. Thorsson rallied at the end of Day 2 to become the second player of the Grand Final to break the 700,000 chip mark. Here is the complete list of Day 2’s top ten survivors: 

Ole Kristian Nergard – 726,000

Kristoffer Thorsson – 701,500

Daniel Weinman – 676,000

Huge Lemaire – 658,000

Melanie Weisner – 543,500

William Reynolds – 541,500

Jose Nadal – 533,500

Simon Higgins – 517,500

Victor Ramdin – 494,500

Thorsson no doubt seems like an especially formidable player in part because of the amazing grind session he had today, turning his back of the pack stack of only 21,800 chips into the second largest pile by the end of the day. It goes without saying that not all the Day 2 competitors fared as well as Thorsson, but here are a few of the more notable eliminations: returning champion Nicolas Chouity, Humberto Brenes, Olivier Busquet, Jason Mercier, Michael Keiner and Liv Boeree.

Apart from the top ten stacks, the Day 3 field will still be thick with some pretty impressive players. Some of the big name pros that are hanging out somewhere in the middle of the pack include: Ted Forrest, Ben Wilinofsky, Lucien Cohen, Surinder Sunar and Tobias Reinkemeier. Play resumes tomorrow at 1200 CEST (0300 PDT), and by the end of Day 3 of the EPT Grand Final these tough, top 100 players will be diminished to just 24 players.

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