And with what looks to be a record breaking field for an EPT, we've finished the day with around 350 players remaining. At the top of the tree? The Dutchman Michael Eerhart with 247,800. However, a familiar name lurks just beneath him in second place as Bertrand "ElkY" Grospieller has 232,200 in his stack.
Despite the 20+ hour bus ride for Barry Greenstein, "The Bear" busted right at the end of the day joining others on the rail that included Vitaly Lunkin, Joe Cada, Jake Cody and Vanessa Rousso.
Day 2 will start tomorrow once more from 12pm local time. There won't be a volcano but we are going to promise more eruptions of action!
Dermot Blain, already a big stack, had a spot of good luck towards the end of the night as he found himself looking at a flop on which another player had moved all in. Blain called.
Blain:
His opponent:
Turn: for quads
River:
With that, Blain shifted into the chip lead on what looked like over 250,000. He had dropped a little by the end of play, but is still among the chip leaders on 211,800.
It's been a long 36 hours for Barry Greenstein. Stuck in London. Stuck in a bus with a bunch of young, rowdy poker players for 20 hours. A day late to San Remo.
And now, the capper, he's been eliminated just as the day comes to a close. Greenstein got it in with king-queen, and he was looked up by an opponent with ace-nine. The flop brought the queen, but the river brought the ace, and the board of board marked the end of the day for the Bear.
Just as yesterday, the clock has been paused with just shy of 10:00 on the clock. We'll play seven more hands at each table before calling for the bags.
A raising war between Andrea Benelli and Thomas Bichon, saw the latter all-in and in deep water with against the Italian's . But a board later and it was the Frenchman who had survived the shootout to double up.
We arrived just in time to see Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier raking in a huge pot, and a gentleman on the rail was kind enough to fill in the details.
It seems that Alexander Smolin raised in the cutoff and ElkY reraised from the small blind. Smolin called and they saw an flop with two hearts on it. ElkY check-called around 4,500 and they saw a turn - it was the , which put a diamond flush draw on the board as well. Both players checked.
The river was another in neither hearts nor diamonds and ElkY bet out 14,000. Smolin called, but promptly mucked when ElkY turned over .
Smolin is now short-stacked and scowling. ElkY meanwhile is firmly in the lead on over 200,000.
Craig McCorkell raised to 2,000 and Andrew Teng called on the button but Andrew Seden in the small blind had other ideas and made it 6,000 to go. McCorkell called, Teng folded, and they went heads-up to the flop.
Flop:
Seden bet out 10,500 and McCorkell quietly called, leading them necessarily to a turn.
Turn:
Now Seden checked and it was McCorkell's turn to bet - he pushed 16,700 across the line. Seden flatted and they went to the river.
River:
Seden checked again and McCorkell asked how much Seden had left. Answer = 65,000. Eventually McCorkell checked behind and flipped . Presumably Seden couldn't beat it as he mucked, and McCorkell moved up to a commanding 170,000.