Vilamoura Championship Main Event
Day 2 Completed
2009 PokerStars.com EPT Vilamoura
Vilamoura Championship Main Event
Day: 2
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2009 PokerStars.com EPT Vilamoura
Buy-in
€5,000
Prize Pool
€1,561,700
Entries
322
Level
28
Blinds
40,000 / 80,000
Ante
5,000
Day 2 Wraps Up
![[user66118]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
The doors opened with 177 players in their seats for the push toward the money. A whole mass of the Team PokerStars pros were still in contention, but they would begin to fall one-by-one as the day progressed. First to go was Dutchman Joep van den Bijgaart. Then went Katja Thater (Germany) and Chad Brown (USA). Rino Mathis (Sweden) and Juan Manuel Pastor (Spain) followed, and Luca Pagano (Italy) and JP Kelly (UK) weren't far behind. American Jason Mercier had worked his stack up to a healthy count before "punting" it off, as he said. Mercier six-bet shoved with queen-jack, and he couldn't push Antony Lellouche off of his pocket kings. Portuguese Team Pro Henrique Pinho was the last of the PokerStars casualties of the day when his ace-king ran smack into pocket aces.
A few interesting stories are beginning to emerge as the tournament progresses. The aforementioned Lellouche is having another solid run through the middle stages of this event, a position he's familiar with here at the EPT. Canadian chess prodigy Jeff Sarwer is also in a familiar spot, perched firmly atop the leader board. At the last stop in Warsaw, Sarwer rode his solid decision-making to a monster chip lead and a deep run at the final table. He's back at it again here in Vilamoura, storming through this second day to amass another huge chip stack. We're still waiting for the final chip tallies, but it appears Sarwer has secured the overnight chip lead with more than 525,000.
We've got lots of big names near the top of the board, and tomorrow is set up to be a great day of poker. Along with Lellouche and Sarwer, Pierre Neuville, Ruben Visser, Jude Ainsworth, and Martin Wendt are all up there in contention. Just behind them lurk another group of dangerous players, the likes of Tobias Renkemeier, Ross Boatman, and Jim "Mr_BigQueso" Collopy. Still, it really is anyone's game with 75-minute levels and the fantastic EPT structure working for them.
The full overnight chip counts and seating assignments will be posted as soon as they become available to us.
Day 3 will run at high noon tomorrow, and we'll be here scribbling away furiously in our notepads, trying to catch every flop, turn, and river as we play down to the final 24 players. We'll see you then!
Orlandi Doubles
rainbow, Orlandi got all ~60,000 of his chips into the middle with 
. Andy Black looked him up with 
, putting Orlandi in fine shape to survive.The turn
and river 
kept Orlandi ahead, moving his chip stack up to about 125,000 on one of the final hands of the night.
Five More
Strassmann Snatches a Double
. First to act from the small blind, Johannes Strassmann made a leading bet of 16,100. That was enough to get the big blind out of the way, but Pierre Neuville was not so quickly folded. He asked for a count on his opponent's stack, and Strassmann had 34,000 behind. With that, Neuville plunked a big stack of chips into the pot, and Strassmann said, "I call. I call all in."He turned over
, and Neuville showed top two with 
. It was still a bit of a sweat for the at-risk Team PokerStars Pro, but the turn and river came safe-safe (
and 
).Just as the night is winding down, Strassmann has earned himself an eleventh-hour double up back over 100,000. Neuville has slipped down under 200,000 after that loss.
Wahhh
"It's like being in Belfast!" shouted Andy Black.
Soaring to New Heitmanns
The flop showed up
, and Heitmann checked. Erkenov fired 24,000 at the pot, and Heitmann wasted little time calling. Fourth street brought the 
and checks from both players, and the 
on the river put four to the straight on board. Heitmann checked again, as did Erkenov.Heitmann let out a sigh of disgust as he showed down
for the flopped straight. "Terrible river," he sighed. He still had the best hand though; Erkenov flashed his 
before sending his cards back to the dealer and a smaller-than-it-could-have-been chunk of chips over to Heitmann.The German Team PokerStars Pro has eclipsed the 150,000-chip mark courtesy of that pot.
Menendez Gunned Down
flop. Nicolo Calia across the table considered it but passed; back to Andy Black in the small blind, who called.Menendez:
Black:
Turn:
River:
Menendez is out, while Black is up to 280,000 or so, although we at PokerNews deplore and denounce his uneven stacking technique.
Strassmann All Over the Board
to double up to 90,000. Luis Rodrigues was the hapless gent who paid him off in full, and looked extremely put out as he dropped to 100,000 or so.
He Came, He Sarwer, He Conquered
; the pot had somehow swelled to around 150,000. When we caught up with the action, there was a bet of 150,000 in front of Jeff Sarwer. Across the table, Andre Santos appeared to have fallen asleep over his remaining 90,000 or so, head in hands.After a while tablemate Allan Baekke called time, eliciting an absolutely instantaneous fold from Santos. A small puff of air, possibly also of relief, escaped Sarwer's lips, as he moves on up to 500,000 or so, the clear chip lead.