Day 2 of the EPT Tallinn Main Event is now done and dusted after six 75-minute long levels here in the luxurious Swissotel. The 198 players who survived Day 1a and Day 1b joined together today and they all shared a common goal, to survive the day and keep the dream of becoming a European Poker Tour Champion alive.
The dream ended abruptly for more than half of the field as only 63 made it through with their chipstacks intact. One man who has more than his fair share of chips is Sweden's Nikolas Liakos who flew under the radar all day long but bagged up a colossal 460,200 when play came to an end. Part of his massive stack was won when he cracked Henri Kasper's pocket aces with a lowly pair of fours, which went onto make a set by the river.
The only other player to make it past the 400,000 chip mark was Finland's Lari Sivho who ended the day with 400,100 chips. Sivho only has one previous EPT cash and that was a 15th place finish in Barcelona in Season 7 but he does have fond memories of Tallinn, having won a €2,000 side event last year for a cool €80,191.
Along with these monster stacks there are still some notable faces in the crowd including Team PokerStars Pro Arnaud Mattern, who gave a new definition to grinding it out today. At no point did he find himself with more than 40 big blinds and at one point looked set to double up but his pocket nines lost to a runner-runner straight to leave him very short stacked indeed. He somehow managed to drag himself back into the fight and he will start Day 3 with 58,900.
Other notables include EPT Prague Champion Roberto Romanello, Praz Bansi and Sami Kelopuro. A special mention has to go out to Johan van Til who started the day with just 5,000 chips and somehow ended the day with 199,000. Ironically his online poker alias is “busto soon” but it does not look like he will bust out any time soon.
Day 3 of the EPT Tallinn Main Event restarts at 1200 noon and we will definitely see the money bubble burst. We believe the plan is to play for five levels so that everyone can attend the lavish PokerStars party at 2100 where there will be free drinks galore! Join us live from 1200 noon for all the action as it happens here at EPT Tallinn.
Nikolas Liakos snatched away the chip lead from Lari Sihvo in the last three hands after he cracked aces to surge to 460,200.
Henri Kasper raised and then moved all-in after Liakos three-bet from the button. The Swede had a lowly pair of fours but flopped a four to ruin Kasper's evening.
The race is on to be end of day chip leader. Jani Sointula is the latest to stake a claim after he eliminated Marc Casanova Cardona to move up to 325,000 chips. It was a bit of a cooler as Sointula woke up with pocket pockets kings when his opponent found ace-king.
The charismatic Welsh..English…French..oh who cares the charismatic Jeremy Nock has just been eliminated and slow-rolled by the Norwegian Ron Paltto.
Nock raised to 6,700 from under the gun and Paltto three-bet to 16,600. The action folded back around to Nock who moved all-in and Paltto asked for a count. Nock counted his chips, then the dealer counted his chips before Paltto called holding pocket Kings!
Nock
Wetzel
Nock rose to his feet and started shouting for an ace but it never came.
Board:
Paltto earned himself ~186,000 and a telling off from Oscar Lima for slow-rolling.
Ronny Kaiser has just sent Vladimir Federov to the rail in a button versus small blind confrontation. Kaiser raised to 4,000 and then quickly called when Federov moved all in for his last 13,000 chips.
Kaiser held and needed to hit a queen to beat the dominating of Federov. And he did just that as the final board ran out and we are now down to 73 players.
Anders Berg, the Team PokerStars Online Pro better known as "Donald" has just doubled up the extremely vocal Sam El Sayed. Berg had raised to 4,000 from under the gun plus one and this was enough to fold everyone out, except El Sayed in the big blind. He pushed all in for 33,000 and Berg made the call.
Berg:
El Sayed:
El Sayed's hand was dominated by Berg's be he need not worry about that as the flop came down . Berg still had outs to an ace or a ten but he was soon drawing to only a ten as the turn was the . The river was the and El Sayed boosted his stack back to 70,000.
Matthew Frankland was stood in front of the media desk with John Eames and Dan Carter. His head was bowed and he looked glum. Further investigation revealed he had just busted from the tournament.
He got the last of his chips in with ace-queen versus pocket jacks. Frankland held he and the flop came but his hopes were dashed through the bricky turn and river.
in a bizarre hand, Lari Sihvo made a standard raise under the gun and Jeff Sarwer called in the small blind before Markus Wetzel moved 33,100 into the middle (leaving 400 behind). Sihvo called and Sarwer folded and both players saw a flop of . Wetzel checked and Sihvo put the last 400 into the middle and Wetzel called.
Sihvo
Wetzel
The turn brought a little bit of hope for Wetzel but the on the river sent him out of the tournament and sent Sihvo into the chip lead with ~360,000 chips.
and needed to hit a queen to beat the dominating 
of Federov. And he did just that as the final board ran out 
and we are now down to 73 players.
. Berg still had outs to an ace or a ten but he was soon drawing to only a ten as the turn was the 
. The river was the 
and El Sayed boosted his stack back to 70,000.
but his hopes were dashed through the bricky turn and river.
. Wetzel checked and Sihvo put the last 400 into the middle and Wetzel called.
but the 
on the river sent him out of the tournament and sent Sihvo into the chip lead with ~360,000 chips.