European Poker Tour Snowfest Day 2: Money Bubble Looms and Phillip Meulyzer Leads the Way
Day 2 of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Snowfest began with 268 players out of the 482 who entered. By the end of the day, the field was cut to 81 players, nine places away from being in the money.
Phillip Meulyzer finished the day with the chip lead, bagging 623,500 in chips. Meulyzer overtook the top spot on the chip leaderboard largely from a hand he played against Markus Golser. The two had been sparring throughout the opening levels of Day 2, and it all came to a head on a board reading 5♠8♠9♥3♠. Golser moved all in over Meulyzer's check-raise. Meulyzer called instantly and tabled A♠4♠ for the nut flush, leaving Golser and his pocket queens drawing dead. The river was the 3♦ and Golser was eliminated, while Meulyzer took over the chip lead.
Eight former EPT champions made Day 2. Of the eight, Kevin Stani, Kevin MacPhee, Liv Boeree, Salvatore Bonavena, Anton Wigg, and Max Lykov all made swift exits early in the day. EPT Copenhagen winner, Michael Tureniec continued his ascent of the chip leaderboard. He spent much of the early half of the day battling and playing several large pots against Yann Dion. Tureniec finally prevailed when his queens won a classic coin flip against Dion's ace-king. That win put Tureniec among the chip leaders, but by day's end, he had fallen a bit, and goes into Day 3 in the 12th spot on the chip leaderboard.
The only other former EPT winner left in the field, Sebastian Ruthenberg, also managed to make it through to Day 3, but with a much shorter stack than Tureniec. Other notables to make it through Day 2 include Cristian Dragomir, James Keys, Martins Adeniya, Vladimir Geshkenbein, and last year's Snowfest runner-up, Russell Carson.
Team PokerStars is still well-represented going into Day 3 with Team SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo, and Team Pros Alex Kravchenko and Luca Pagano all bagging chips at the end of Day 2.
Day 3 resumes at 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday and will end when 24 players remain. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there covering all the action, so keep it locked to the Live Reporting Page for more.
Below is Laura Cornelius with an update from the start of Day 2.
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