Andrei Stoenescu Grabs the Chip Lead at the Death
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A total of 419 players returned today as the two starting day fields combined, each player hoping to claim the €770,000 first prize and title of EPT Deauville champion. After six levels of intense action, it was Andrei Stoenescu who finished the day at the summit of Mount Pokers with 485,600 with still 34 players to be eliminated before the money bubble which will occur tomorrow.
Many of the Team PokerStars Pros still remained but Nacho Barbero, Team Online's Luca Moschitta as well as Frenchmen Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Julien Brecard all suffered relatively early exits. New Team Pro, as well as the winner of this event back in Season 6, Jake Cody lasted a little longer but the dream died when his 
was beaten by Bruno Le Garrec's 
when the board came 
. Lex Veldhuis was forced to accept a similar fate, losing with ace-king to queens, the king came first to tease him but a queen swiftly followed – exit one unhappy Dutchman. Despite this, Sandra Naujoks (73,500), Vanessa Rousso (34,200) and Matthias De Meulder (186,000) have made it through to Day 3 and will no doubt hoping to make it even further.
Others who made it through include former champions Zimnan Ziyard (380,200) and Lucien Cohen (46,100) who along with Naujoks are looking for that incredibly elusive second EPT title. Online phenom Jason Koon managed to sail through with a hefty 275,100 while Freddy Deeb will be back tomorrow with 114,800. Last season's winner Vadzim Kursevich will not be rejoining us, he was eliminated when Thomas Butzhammer's pocket queens triumphed over his king-queen.
Joining the Belarussian on the rail were Nicolas Levi, who lost a large flip with 
to Tobias Peters' 
on an 
board when all the money went in on the flop. Marvin Rettenmaier came a cropper when his ace-king ran into kings. Arnaud Mattern flopped a flush against bottom two pair only for the latter hand to improve to a full house on the turn, removing yet another former EPT champion from the tournament.
Tomorrow we'll be hitting the money and with 154 players coming back and only 120 being paid, it still means that around a quarter of those coming back will be have nothing but memories to show for their efforts.
We'll be back again tomorrow from 12pm (CET) to bring you all the news as the EPT Deauville Main Event heads into Day 3.
