Juha Helppi Cruises to Chip Lead After Day 2 of the Kings of Tallinn Main Event
Finnish poker superstar Juha Helppi, whose $7.1 million in live tournament cashes is only behind the $7.3 million achieved by Patrick Antonius on The Hendon Mob Finland All Time Money List, cruised his way to a chip lead at the end of Day 2 of the OlyBet Kings of Tallinn €1,100 Main Event at the Olympic Park Casino and the Hilton Park Hotel with 316,500 in chips.
During the last break of the day, Helppi shared that he has been to every Kings of Tallinn event and is looking forward to playing in the big €50/€100 pot-limit Omaha game with Antonius and others running in the casino's poker room.
Late registration was open until the beginning of the day. By the time the last players joined the field, a new Kings of Tallinn Main Event record was established with 268 entrants generating a massive €254,600 prize pool.
A total of 181 players began the days in hopes of being in contention for the €62,000 top prize or at least the min-cash paid guaranteed to the 31 players that cash of €2,110. By the end of the day's seven one hour blind levels, the field was trimmed down by almost two-thirds with 61 players bagging chips to Day 3.
Not too far behind Helppi are two Lithuanian players in [Removed:174] with a second-place stack of 313,000 and Arunas Garunkstis with a third-place stack of 282,000 in chips.
Behind this duo is Estonian charismatic poker player Kelly Limonova with a fourth-place stack of 278,000. Limonova began the day short on chips with 24,900 in chips. She was down to just 4,000 in chips before she won double after double and zoomed up to nearly 200,000 in a little more than a blind level.
At one point, Limonova shared that her stack was up to 380,000 but she began taking risks including calling an all-in bet from a short-stack without looking at her cards. That being said, she is on top of the world and shared that she has never felt better entering into a Day 3 in an event.
All three of the Team OlyBet pros began in contention. However, Estonia's Carmen-Elina Vist wasn't able to make it through the day after her king-jack proved to be no good against pocket aces held by her opponent.
Fellow Estonian Team OlyBet pro Raigo Aasmaa survived the day with 139,500 in chips while Latvian Team OlyBet pro Dmitrijs Meless wasn't too far behind bagging 131,500 in chips.
Day 3 of the Main Event will kick off at 12 p.m. local time tomorrow with blinds at 2,000/4,000 and an ante of 500. Tournament organizers expect players to be in the money by the time the day ends and we will share the starting seat assignments before the action resumes.
As was the case the past two days, the PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the floor to provide complete coverage tomorrow and beyond until a winner is declared.
*Photos courtesy of Rene Velli