It took two days to whittle a gigantic field of 1,501 players in the €1,100 EPT National down to the final 24. The players duked it out all day in the cash game room of Le Sporting at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort and broke down to 24 shortly before the end of the day. After the redraw took place, just a few more hands were played until chips were bagged for the night.

Michal Mrakes was the one walking away with the biggest stack of them all (6,070,000). Despite his commanding lead, the chipleader was the first to put things into perspective.

"I was just really lucky. I didn't need any skills, I really mean it," Mrakes told PokerNews.

"I hit my two-outer twice, four-outer once, I won three-way all in with jack-nine suited against pocket eights and ace-nine. Twice, I had aces into kings. If you run like this, anybody can be chipleader and you don't need any skills. Oh, I forgot to mention I twice flopped a straight against a set from a big stack, we got it in and I held twice. This was definitely the luckiest day I've ever had," Mrakes said.

Team PokerStars Pro Online Randy "nanonoko" Lew extended on his good run from Day 1 and made the final 24 with 2,010,000, good enough for the eight place overall after two full days.

"I've been practicing a lot and I think it's paying off," the Team PokerStars Pro said about his tournament game to PokerNews.

"I pretty much maintained a big stack throughout the whole tournament so far. I just played really and I never really got short. I was usually around double average stack in the tournament," the online cashgame machine added.

Asked whether he's a tournament pro now, Lew laughed heartedly: "Not until I win."

I feel like I just want to be a better tournament player. I think I can have much better results and I kind of want to prove myself that I can do that first, then figure out what to do next," he concluded.

Next to Mrakes and Lew, the name of Georgios Vrakas stands out among the final 24. Vrakas might be considered the world's premier specialist when it comes to these National events, after winning last year's €1,100 National Championship in Prague (€338,000) and the €2,200 National High Roller in Barcelona (€330,000). A third win in the span of just eight months would put Vrakas in unmatched territory at these midstakes tournaments. To achieve the improbable, Vrakas has to come from behind, as his stack of 1,150,000 puts him in the bottom tier of the leaderboard.

Other players that made their way to the final day include Federico Petruzzelli (5,685,000), French pros Gaelle Baumann (3,345,000) and Guillaume Diaz (2,050,000), as well as PokerStars Festival London High Roller winner and Platinum Pass owner Dragos Trofimov (1,175,000). They'll all return on Saturday at noon local time with blinds at 25,000/50,000 and play down until the winner is crowned.

€1,100 EPT National Day 3 Seating and Chip Counts

Tags: Federico PetruzzelliGaelle BaumannGeorgios VrakasMichal MrakesRandy Lew