Muehloecker Leads PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo €25K High Roller
After more than eleven hours of play, Day 2 of the 2017 PokerStars Championship presented by Monte-Carlo Casino® €25,750 High Roller is in the books. 187 players created a total prize pool of €4,581,500 and 27 of them are still in the hunt for the astonishing first place prize of €1,015,000.
The second day was defined by a hand-for-hand phase that lasted three hours.
The second day was defined by a hand-for-hand phase that lasted three hours, including the stone bubble that took more than an hour to burst.
Thomas Muehloecker bagged the overnight chip lead with 887,000, closely followed by Ekrem Sanioglu (795,000) and Charlie Carrel (747,000).
All top stacks profited from the extremely long bubble phase and build their stacks by applying pressure. Among the survivors are Dario Sammartino (690,000), Adrian Mateos (562,000), John Juanda (510,000), the PokerStars Team Pros Igor Kurganov (279,000) and Felipe Ramos (239,000), Philipp Gruissem (201,000), Martin Jacobson (153,000) and Daniel Dvoress (108,000).
Steffen Sontheimer became the unfortunate bubble boy after losing the classic race with ace-king versus pocket queens.
The Day 3 seat draw:
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | 562,000 |
| 1 | 3 | Thomas Muehloecker | Austria | 887,000 |
| 1 | 4 | Martin Jacobson | Sweden | 153,000 |
| 1 | 5 | Julian Thomas | Germany | 672,000 |
| 1 | 6 | Charlie Carrel | UK | 767,000 |
| 1 | 7 | Dario Sammartino | Italy | 690,000 |
| 1 | 8 | Dmitry Yurasov | Russia | 216,000 |
| 2 | 1 | Javier Gomez Zapatero | Spain | 125,000 |
| 2 | 2 | Maxi Lehmanski | Germany | 55,000 |
| 2 | 4 | Ekrem Sanioglu | France | 795,000 |
| 2 | 5 | Jimmy Guerrero | France | 117,000 |
| 2 | 6 | Aliaksei Boika | Belarus | 235,000 |
| 2 | 7 | Timothy Adams | Canada | 117,000 |
| 3 | 2 | Joao Simao | Brazil | 295,000 |
| 3 | 3 | Felipe Ramos | Brazil | 239,000 |
| 3 | 4 | Julian Stuer | Germany | 600,000 |
| 3 | 5 | Pavel Plesuv | Moldova | 152,000 |
| 3 | 6 | John Juanda | Indonesia | 510,000 |
| 3 | 7 | Murad Akhundov | Azerbaijan | 203,000 |
| 3 | 8 | Philipp Gruissem | Germany | 201,000 |
| 4 | 1 | Vlado Banicevic | Montenegro | 170,000 |
| 4 | 2 | Josip Simunic | Austria | 377,000 |
| 4 | 3 | Igor Kurganov | Russia | 279,000 |
| 4 | 4 | Sylvain Loosli | France | 220,000 |
| 4 | 5 | Daniel Dvoress | Canada | 108,000 |
| 4 | 6 | [Removed:17] | New Zealand | 291,000 |
| 4 | 7 | Emil Patel | Finland | 325,000 |
The day started with 95 Day 1 survivors out of 143 entries. Late registration was open for another three hours, giving players a late chance to jump in or fire an optional reentry if they so desired. After three levels, the total number of players got up to 187, and 27 of them were to share in the €4,581,500 prize pool.
Start-of-the-day chip leader Oleksii Khoroshenin had a brutal day and busted after clashing with Joao Simao in the third level of the day. Khoroshenin's trip kings lost in a massive pot against the Brazilian's full house. The EPT10 Vienna Main Event champion quickly bought himself back in again but failed to advance to Day 3.
Even with hand-for-hand and the shot clock in play, it took almost three hours.
Khoroshenin was soon joined on the rail by an all-star line-up of poker players. Christoph Vogelsang, David Peters, Sam Grafton, Ole Schemion, Govert Metaal, Dietrich Fast, Steve O'Dwyer. Justin Bonomo, Keven Stammen, Igor Yaroshevskyy, Isaac Haxton, Mustapha Kanit, Erik Seidel, Martin Finger, Rainer Kempe and Ryan Riess all finished empty-handed.
Team PokerStars Pro's Daniel Negreanu and Liv Boeree fell on Day 2 as well. Boeree busted with pocket threes to pocket eights while Negreanu four-bet shoved pocket jacks into pocket queens. The Red Spade is down to just two hopefuls as Ramos and birthday boy Kurganov moved onto Day 3.
With 32 players left, five places before the money, the action slowed down to a crawl and hand-for-hand was implemented. Even with hand-for-hand and the shot clock in play, it took almost three hours and multiple short stacks surviving before Sontheimer lost the classic race. With Sontheimer's exit, all remaining players were guaranteed at least €45,820 for their accomplishment.
After the bubble burst, play was instantly stopped for the day with 27 players bagging up their chips. At 12:30 p.m. local time on Friday, play will resume with the blinds at 5,000/10,000 and a running ante of 1,000. Due to the long bubble phase, a lot of players were left short and action should start off furiously right away. Follow all the excitement on PokerNews as we play down to the winner of the PokerStars Championship €25,750 High Roller.
A former professional poker player with a background in sports marketing and journalism. Yori has been a part of PokerNews since 2016 and manages the content team.
