Main Event
Day 2 Started
2010 PokerStars.com EPT London
Main Event
Day: 2
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2010 PokerStars.com EPT London
Buy-in
£5,000
Prize Pool
£4,112,800
Entries
848
Level
33
Blinds
150,000 / 300,000
Ante
0
Welcome to the 2010 PokerStars.com EPT London - Day 2
![[user76023]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
Once again it's going to be a squeeze as we attempt to fit in the 380 remaining players into the tournament area. Despite losing nearly 500 players, the field is still incredibly stacked as both Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey remain with above average stacks.
Also stil in the tournament are former EPT champions, Arnaud Mattern, Kevin MacPhee as well as the former winner here a few years ago, Vicky Coren. The man at the top at the moment though is Italian Claudio Cecchi, who holds the chip lead with 237,500 and is the chip leader by a decent margin.
We're expecting play to begin in around 20 minutes or so and it looks as though we'll most likely be playing 6 or 7 levels.
Level: 10
Blinds: 600/1,200
Ante: 100
Aaaaaaand They're Off!
Tournament Director Thomas Kremser gave some warm introductions to the players, thanking them for making this the largest-ever tournament in the UK.
Kremser ran down the schedule for the day, and it seems we'll be playing on into the money and then calling it a night when we have 128 players remaining. That should make for quite a long Day 3 and 4, but it's TK's world and we're just living in it.
In any event, the cards are flying here on Day 2, and they're off for the race to the money.
Lykov Times Two
Max Lykov started the day with just about what he started yesterday with, 29,300. This day's starting off a little better for the Russian Team Pro, though. Lykov has just found a double after getting his chips all in preflop with 
against a player with pocket jacks.
There was an ace and two more kings on board, and kings full bump Lykov up over 60,000 here in the early going.
Frenzied
"All-in and a call on table 25!"
"Seat open table 36!"
There's shouting from the dealers in the first ten minutes of play from all over the room, turning it almost into a (albeit not very good) chorus round. To be honest, we're not going to ask them to do "Row, row, row your boat..." later.
Almira Skripchenko was eliminated early on while Allen Kessler survived an early coinflip with 
against Quinn Do's 
on a 
board to double to about 55,000.
Neil Channing has also started quickly, "I pushed in consecutive hands, I'm one of those online kids now. Having and 
had nothing to do with it."
Deeb Acquires Power of Invisibility
Freddy Deeb, the shortest man in the room this morning in more than one respect, has now in fact dwindled to nothing. Returning today with just 6,400 and thus officially the shortest player here, he has since vanished completely from his seat. We didn't see what happened, but we are jumping right to conclusions and declaring that he busted from the tournament rather than, say, spontaneously combusted or something.
Young is Old News
We found Justin Young all in with 
and ahead of Kevin Eyster's 
. However, Young didn't look happy and was already standing and collecting his belongings before the 
flop, and come the spiky 
on the turn he was halfway across the room. The 
river did nothing for him, and there followed a brief argument among the rest of the table as to whether he had actually seen the six that did him in before he left. The consensus was yes, probably.
Renaut Accelerating
Claire Renault, a favourite with us as she was until recently a member of the poker media, finished up yesterday among the chip leaders on 170,000.
Since then, she has only increased that stack, and is now in serious contention for the chip lead - she's up to 226,000.
Dodging Bullets?
Joshua Tekesky opened the pot with a raise, and we joined the action as Rifat Palevic was three-betting to 9,100. A few seats over, Claire Renaut four-bet to 23,000, only to see Tekesky shove all in for 116,100 total.
Palevic would take several long minutes to think silently, and a couple of us bloggers watching the hand were speculating that he must have something like pocket queens. In any event, his two cards eventually and reluctantly went into the muck, and the action was back on Renaut.
"This is a nightmare," she said, as the television crew rolled tape. She continued to mumble for a few minutes, cutting out the calling chips to assess the potential damage to her stack. After another long while, she double-checked her cards and released them into the muck.
She claimed to have folded pocket queens herself, and Palevic lamented that he'd folded kings.
"You did not fold kings there!" McLean Karr said from the two seat. "That's not even a good bluff. Folded kings...."
Renaut seemed certain that Tekesky had ace-king, and she pried unsuccessfully for more information. It was a remarkable hand either way.