Sergey Lebedev Leads Final 13 in �10,300 High Roller
A total of 80 players returned for Day 2 of the 2016 PokerStars EPT12 Dublin �10,300 High Roller and three players reentered while Scott Margereson signed up just before the restart to create a prize pool of �1,794,500 with 185 entries. Within 10 levels of 60 minutes each, the field has been whittled down to just 13 hopefuls. Leading them is Sergey Lebedev after the Russian bagged up 1,522,000 chips. Three other players claimed over one million in chips: Emil Patel (1,339,000), Ryan Riess (1,174,000) and Akin Tuna (1,100,000).
Lebedev amassed a large percentage of his chips when he turned a set of queens against Samuel Panzica, with the American holding aces. That boosted his chip stack to nearly 1.7m, but he ended up slightly less. Other notables who are still in going into day three include Davidi Kitai (512,000), Christoph Vogelsang, (310,000), Timothy Adams, (758,000), Rocco Palumbo (565,000) and Sam Chartier (458,000).
A whole host of players bust on day two, both before and after play was in the money. Igor Kurganov, Anthony Zinno, Fabrice Soulier, Mustapha Kanit, Mohsin Charania, Daniel Dvoress, Bryn Kenny and Mike Watson all busted before play was in the money, and missed out on a min cash worth �17,950.
The unfortunate moniker of bubble boy went to UKIPT Main Event Champion Vladas Tamasauskas who tanked on the bubble in a hand against Jerry Odeen before calling with ace-seven for a pair of sevens, only to be sent to the rail by Odeen��s pocket nines.
Once the money bubble burst, players went on a 75 minute dinner break. After they returned, the bust outs quickened up, with Ibrahim Ghassan (27th), Francois Billard (25th) and Scott Margereson (24th) busting in quick succession for a min-cash worth �17,950. Another player who secured a min-cash was day one chip leader Dominik Nitsche (26th) who lost a pot to Marco Leonzio where Leonzio turned a straight, which was enough to beat Nitsche who held only jacks. He then lost the remainder of his chips calling a check-shove with ace-jack against William Arruda, who had flopped two-pair with ace-nine.
The bustouts continued with Joao Vieira (23rd), Luiz Duarte (22nd) and Arne Coulier (21st) cashing for �19,750. Next Jacob Bazeley (20th) and Marco Leonzio (19th) cashed for a slightly higher amount (�21,530), with the latter busting in a one million chip pot with Ryan Riess and Jason Mercier. Riess got it in with pocket nines ahead of Mercier's ace-king, with Leonzio's ace-eight hopelessly behind.
After that the pace slowed before the high profile eliminations began, first with Jason Mercier, who was short after that huge pot, (18th for �21,530), Ben Heath (17th for �24,220), Jeff Gross (16th for �24,220), Sylvain Loosli (15th for �26,910) and Felix Bleiker (14th for �26,910) exiting the tournament field before play stopped for the night.
The last 13 players will return tomorrow at 12.30 p.m. for the final day of the EPT Dublin festival, each vying for the trophy and �397,500 first prize.