At the end of Day 1 of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final €100K Super High Roller it was Igor Kurganov who led the 44 players who remained. Half-way through the 10 scheduled levels on Day 2 that’s still the case but that’s pretty much the only thing that hasn’t changed.
Before play started today a further seven players either won their way in (Imad Derwiche and Anton Astapau), bought in for the first time (Isaac Lo, Antonio Esfandiari, Dzmitry Urbanovich and Piotr Franczak) or re-bought (Max Altergott). Of those seven Urbanovich, Franczak, Astapau, and Altergott are still among the 20 players remaining.
They all trail Kurganov though, the overnight chip leader started with bang on one million and has nearly doubled that as he started level 13 (8,000/16,000 ante 2,000) with a massive stack of 1,971,000. He got his biggest boost by eliminating Phil Ivey, cracking the 10 time bracelet winners aces along the way. The pair of them got it all-in pre-flop for right around a million chips with Kurganov’s pocket fives trailing Ivey’s aces. A five on the flop and another on the turn gave Kurganov quads and eliminated Ivey.
Trailing Kurganov by just under one big blind is Erik Seidel, his ascent to near the top of the chip counts is down to eliminating Team Pro Online’s Ike Haxton in a pot worth around 1,900,000. The majority of the chips went in on the river of a J♥ 5♦ 10♥ 7♠ Q♣ board with Seidel betting 115,000, Haxton raising to 515,000 and Seidel then shoving for an effective 780,000. Haxton tank called with Q♠ J♠ but was behind to Seidel’s A♥ K♣ .
Other players with meaty stacks include: Dario Sammartino (1,800,000), Thomas Muehloecker (1,728,000), Quan Zhou (1,094,000), Pratyush Buddiga (1,083,000) and Scott Seiver (1,004,000).
Further down the list you’ll find the likes of: Daniel Negreanu (905,000), Max Altergott (905,000), Tobias Reinkemeier (819,000), George Danzer (811,000), Ole Schemion (660,000), Mike McDonald (437,000) and Fedor Holz (406,000).
As we discussed earlier the exits of Ivey and Haxton’s means their barren runs have continued and others to have joined them on the rail already today include: Connor Drinan, Sam Trickett, Dani Stern, Steve O’Dwyer, Dan Smith, Dan Colman, Philipp Gruissem, Fabian Quoss and Bryn Kenney.
Play will continue until just eight remain, they’ll all be in the money by that point as will the player who’ll have bubbled the official final table. This is what’s up for grabs:
Prize pool: € 6,888,420
1st – €2,015,000
2nd – €1,446,600
3rd – €940,300
4th – €709,500
5th – €551,000
6th – €427,100
7th – €337,500
8th – €261,800
9th – €199,620
Follow all the action from the EPT Grand Final on the main EPT Grand Final page. Follow the Super High Roller or the France Poker Series. To get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts, don’t forget to download the EPT app on either Android or IOS.
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