Final Table Set; Julien Rouxel Leads the Unibet Open London Main Event After Day 2
After almost 14 hours of play, Day 2 of the Unibet Open London Main Event is in the books with France's Julien Rouxel holding the lead heading into Sunday's final table with 2,785,000 in chips.
Day 2 began with the 120 players surviving from the 418 entrants that played in Day 1a and 1b. By the time the first break rolled along, this number was cut in half with just 60 players left. However, things slowed down significantly when players noticed the money bubble looming with 54 players planned to get paid.
After the break, it was the United Kingdom's Kevin Allen (59th place), France's Nicolas Renee (58th place) and Guillaume Reverchon (57th place), and Sweden's Niklas Borg (56th place) eliminated from the tournament to set up hand-for-hand play on the bubble.
It was then that the United Kingdom's Bhavin Khatri declared himself all in with the 
, and Hungary's Mate Mecs called with the 
. A crowd had emerged to watch the action, but there would be no bubble after the board ran out 
.
After over an hour of hand-for-hand, the bubble finally broke after two players declared themselves all in on separate tables. Both were unable to come out on top, with Germany's Denis Malik and Denmark's Christian Lohmann splitting 54th-place prize money of ￡1,650 to take home ￡825 each. That meant the aforementioned Borg, who finished in 56th place, was the last player to go home empty-handed.
The chip leader heading into the day, Czech Republic's Jan Riha, fell just short of making it to the final table, finishing in 13th place for ￡3,755. Belgium's Bjorn Picavet was the last elimination of the day, falling in 10th place for ￡4,605 after his 
was unable to improve against the 
of Bhavin Khatri.
While Rouxel has the chip lead, two other players are close on his tail, with France's Nicolas Cardyn in second place with 2,424,000 and United Kingdom's David Shallow in third place with 2,384,000.
Play will resume on Sunday at 12 p.m. local time, however, PokerNews will begin coverage one hour later at 1 p.m. so we are not spoiling the action for those following the live stream. Blinds will resume at 12,000/24,000 with an ante of 4,000 for a few minutes before going up to 15,000/30,000 with an ante of 5,000.
Returning players are guaranteed a ￡6,300 payout, but the remaining players all have their eyes on the top prize of €62,000. Stay tuned for continued coverage right down to a winner here on PokerNews.com.