PokerStars European Poker Tour Warsaw Day 2: Clayton Mozdzen Claims Lead Heading into Day 3

The 2009 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Warsaw resumed on Thursday for Day 2 action. Combining the remaining fields from the two starting days meant 148 players began the day. Less than five levels of play later, only 56 were left with Clayton Mozdzen claiming the chip lead.

Mozdzen qualified for the event online through PokerStars and luck couldn’t be going much better for him. He came into the day with 103,250 chips, one of only a few players with a six-figure stack. At the end of the day, Mozdzen stuffed his bag with 332,300 chips, putting him in the lead going into Friday.

Last month’s EPT Barcelona champion, Carter Phillips, came into the day as the chip leader. Play began to go much like they went on Day 1a for Phillips, a one-man wrecking crew demolishing the chips stacks at his table. He entered with 194,850 chips and built to well over 300,000 despite being seated at an extremely tough table that included Scotty Nguyen, Alessio Isaia, and two members of Team PokerStars PRO, Dario Minieri and Luca Pagano.

Smooth sailing ended for Phillips, however, when about halfway through the day his table broke and he was moved. At his new table, Phillips doubled up Russian Anatoly Gurtoyov to give away about 160,000 chips. Phillips did manage to bag up 299,800, putting him in second position overall.

Also having a surge on Day 2 was Shaun Deeb who wasted little time in doubling up when he made a heart flush to come from behind with versus . A couple of hours later, he doubled again when he rivered a full house against Lisa Taphanel. He finished the day with 226,400.

Some of the notable-name players who became casualties of the day include Ludovic Lacay, Claudio Rinaldi, and Team PokerStars PRO members Alexander Kravchenko and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. Minieri also fell toward the end of the day, losing his last-longer bet with Deeb, but reigning WSOP champion Peter Eastegate is still hanging on, albeit toward the bottom of the pack.

Play will resume on Friday at 12:30 p.m., local time (CEST). The plan is to whittle down the field from 56 to 24 and then call it quits. If the pace is anything like Thursday, the bags could be sealed within a few hours. Be sure to return to PokerNews for all of the live coverage.

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