2014 PokerStars.net EPT Vienna

The 10th season of the European Poker Tour continued on Tuesday with Day 2 action from Vienna. Registration closed before the start of play, and with a few late registrants the final total of entrants reached 910 players, which means the prize pool is a juicy €4,413,500. The winner is set to receive €816,000, a beautiful trophy and a luxurious Swiss SLYDE watch, with 135 players getting paid a minimum of €8,700.

The man best positioned to make a run at the top prize is Germany's Sebastian Trisch, who completed the day in the lead over the estimated 189 advancing players with a commanding stack of 568,500 in chips. He started the day as one of the big stacks with 146,200 and never really looked back. He was followed by Artur Koren in second place with 463,000 in chips, while Marko Neumann rounded out the top three with 421,100.

One of the first players to be eliminated at the start of the day was the winner of the last EPT Vienna, Michael Eiler. The defending champ fell in Level 9 (400/800/100) when Christian Stallinger opened for 1,600 and Eiler put in the last of his 5,500. Stallinger made the call with the and Eiler was racing for his tournament life with the . The cards fell and Eiler made his way to the exit, which assured a new EPT champion would emerge in Vienna.

As previously mentioned, it was still possible to buy into the event at the start of Day 2, and one of three players who took that option was Daniel “Jungleman” Cates. He would last less than an hour, though, when he called a preflop raise with kings and saw the flop come . He called a bet on the flop and all the money went in on the turn. His opponent had top set with and the case king failed to appear for Cates.

Some other notable players who failed to make it through the night include Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree, who ran queens into aces, and Maxim Lykov, who exited when he five-bet shoved the and was eventually called by the of Antoine Granath. The chip leader at the start of the day, Mads Smith Hansen, also failed to advance.

Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier did make it through, ending with 61,300. He will be joined by Full Tilt Poker Professional Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, who made a rare live tournament appearance here in Austria. Blom bagged up 93,400 in chips and was kind enough to give Pokernews an exclusive interview at one of the breaks.

Gus Hansen, the other Full Tilt Poker Professional, also made it through to Day 3 with 221,000 in chips. He was helped on his way by one of his trademark "less-than-stellar" hands that ended up cracking the aces of Marko Neumann.

Meanwhile, Sam Trickett finished up with 290,000, continuing to run “pure,” as he put it. Just before the end of play, he eliminated Vitaly Lunkin when the two got the money in before the flop with Trickett holding the against the of Lunkin. A final board of gave Trickett a flush on the river and Lunkin’s stack.

Day 3 will kick off at 12 p.m. local time on Wednesday, and it shouldn't take long for the money to be reached. Be sure to join the Pokernews Live Reporting team for up-to-the-minute coverage of the EPT Vienna Main Event sponsored by PokerStars.net. You can also follow the action at the feature table via the live stream at PokerStars.tv with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton providing commentary and analysis.

The full list of Day 2 survivors and the Table Draw will follow later this evening:

Bulgarian pro Simeon Naydenov, last year winner of a WSOP bracelet, was very vocal during a hand in which two players ended up unhappy. One of the two won chips, while the other lost a lot more than he wanted to.

When the dust settled Naydenov recapped the action for us.

Matas Cimbolas raised from the cutoff and Carter Swidler called from the button, after which Naydenov called from the small blind. The flop brought out and Naydenov checked to Cimbolas who bet 10,000. Swidler called from the button and Naydenov folded his cards.

On the turn the hit and Cimbolas check-called 17,500, and the was put down on the river.

This is when it got really interesting as Cimbolas checked again and Swidler bet 36,000.

"He went in the tank for four minutes and the clock was called on him. At the very last second he put in a hand full of chips like this," Naydenov said, as he reenacted Cimbolas putting in a handful of blue 5,000 chips worth around 60,000.

"He put in too much, and he had to make the minimum raise," Naydenov said, but at that point Swidler had already turned over his .

"Everyone knew it was his intention to call, even the guy who won the pot, because he turned over his hand right away," Naydenov said, as he understood the ruling, but didn't agree with the way it was enforced in this clear cut situation where there was no intent of raising.

At first Swidler, with his hand tabled, was a bit confused but ultimately he understood Cimbolas had been forced to put in a full minraise and he made the call. Cimbolas lost a lot extra, while Swidler got a one-round penalty for exposing his hand with action pending.

The tournament staff has just announced that the remaining tables will play five more hands each before bagging and tagging for the night. We're headed upstairs to catch any last-minute action as well as to compile a list of chip counts.

Stay tuned for those as well as a full recap of the Day 2 action...

We saw Ben Yu, who you may recall knocked out Olivier Busquet not too long ago, wandering the halls and he confirmed that he had been eliminated. According to Yu, he lost two big pots. In the first he bluffed but could not push his opponent off top pair.

In the other, he and his opponent got about 100,000 each in on a flop. Yu held for an open-ended straight draw, while his opponent had a set with . The straight didn't get there, and Yu was left with approximately eight big blinds.

He got them in a short time later with , but against that hand failed to win as his opponent's held firm.

Yu then informed us that he'll be bouncing around Europe until the EPT Sanremo rolls around, which of course will be followed by the Grand Final.

Ronny Kaiser is comfortably seated in seat one, receiving an hour or so long massage and grinding it out. He has amassed a nice stack today and he keeps adding new towers to his already rather large castle.

Just now we saw him call a raise to 5,000 from the big blind. Kaiser checked to the initial raiser on the button on a flop, and called the 6,000 bet his opponent made.

Both players continued to check the on the turn after which the dealer put the on the river. Kaiser bet out 10,000 and received a call. His competitor couldn't beat Kaiser's who thus again added chips.