We caught up to find Luca Pagano in a hand with Luca Ascani. The board read and there was over 30,000 already in the pot. Pagano fired a bet of 11,100 and Ascani went into the tank.
Eventually Ascani called and Pagano showed . Ascani flashed a and mucked his hand. By scooping this pot Pagano is now up to 56,000.
Ignat "0Human0" Liviu, who can often be found playing the highest stakes on PokerStars, entered the day on an extreme short stack. He recently got his last 10,100 all in under the gun and received a call from Sam Cohen, who was next to act. The rest of the field got out of the way and the cards were turned up.
Showdown
Liviu:
Cohen:
It was a flip, but not after the flop fell and gave Liviu a set. The turn and river improved that to a full house, and Liviu received a much-needed double.
To learn more about Liviu, check out the Online Chat interview he did with PokerNews a few months back.
We joined the action with already on the board and around 20,000 in the pot. Three players were in, including JC Alvarado, Oleksii Kravchuk and Renaud Desferet.
All three checked the flop and the dealer opened on the turn. No bets followed and the river cards came the . Alvarado and Kravchuk checked again and Desferet made a steal attempt by betting 11,000. Alvarado gather calling chips and eventually tossed them in. Kravchuk folded and Desferet mucked giving the pot away to Alvarado.
Team PokeStars Pro Johnny Lodden called us over to tell us about the first hand of the day for him, and it was a cooler to kick things off.
Lodden was in the big blind and the action was folded around to Dmitri Tchernykh in the small blind. He limped in and Lodden checked to see a an flop come down.
Tchernykh was holding and Lodden for flush over flush.
Lodden was left with 6,000 but managed to double up soon after. Still a lot of work to do to get back in it for the Norwegian.
Melanie Weisner has just become the first victim of Day 2 of the tournament. On the very first hand of the day, Weisner shoved her stack of 7,400 from middle position and was called by Alfonso Donnarumma on her left. The rest of the table folded and the two went heads-up.
Weisner:
Donnarumma:
Weisner needed help from the board, but didn't get any as it came , eliminating Weisner from the tournament.
We all know Sam Trickett's prowess in high stakes cash games and Super High-Rollers, but if he puts his mind to it, he's not bad at these multi-day large field tournaments either. He ran well and played well (dangerous combination) to lead all day one players returning to play day 2 today with 178,000.
He has a lot of talent chasing his coat tail with Justin Bonomo, Alexander Roumeliotis, Chris Brammer, Artem Litvinov, Sam Grafton and Kyle Julius all within touching distance.
Team PokerStars is still being very well represented by Andre Akkari, Nacho Barbero, Johnny Lodden, Jude Ainsworth, Ana Marquez, Luca Pagano, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Pier Paolo Fabretti, Pius Heinz, Victor Ramdin, Theo Jorgensen, Liv Boeree, Mickey Petersen, Eugene Katchalov, Chris Moneymaker and Jason Mercier all still in the hunt.
After the eight-level slog of both day ones the plan is to take it a little easier and play six 75-minute levels. Everyone will be happier about that, as they will be to find out that each table will be less crowded as play is moving to nine-handed.
Join PokerNews back here at 2:00 PM CET when cards will be in the air.