Walid Bou Habib Leads as 189 Advance from Day 2; Defending Champ Falls
On Saturday, Season 10 European Poker Tour Prague Main Event continued with Day 2 action from the Hilton in the Czech Republic’s largest city. Nine late entries combined with the 389 players from Day 1a and 609 from Day 1b brought the total field to 1,007 players — a 17% increase from Season 9’s 864 players — which created a prize pool of €4,883.950 that will be paid to the top 151 finishers.
Day 2 began with 549 players returning to action, but after six 75-minute levels of play just 189 remained. The man best positioned to capture the €889,000 first-place prize is Walid Bou Habib, who finished as the Day 2 chip leader with 509,000. You may recall Habib, who hails from Lebanon, was runner-up in the EPT9 Deauville, which you can read about by clicking here.
Action resumed in Level 9 (400/800/100) and straight out of the gate players began to fall including Somar Al-Darwich, Toby Lewis, Micah Raskin, Oleksii Kovalchuk, and defending champ Ramzi Jelassi.
Jelassi actually fell in Level 10 (500/1,000/100) when Elfad Mammadov opened for 1,800 and was raised by the active Nikov Dobromir Georgiev to 5,200. Jelassi, who had folded to a river bet a few hands before to leave him with a stack of 14,100, then moved all in from the small blind. Mammadov tank-folded and then Georgiev made the call.
Georgiev: 
Jelassi: 
The flop was dealt 
and it appeared Jelassi was going to win the race, but the 
turn gave Georgiev back the lead. The 
river missed Jelassi’s straight draw, and that meant there would be no repeat victory for the Swedish pro.
Before long Jelassi had company on the rail in the form of Bryn Kenney, Caicai Huang, Sergio Aido, Gaelle Baumann, Luca Pagano, Daniel Negreanu, and Martin Finger, who was the last former EPT champ standing.
There’s no doubt some big names fell on Day 2, but plenty of them made it through the night including Jonathan Little (471,100), Sebastian Saffari (428,000), Amir Lehavot (427,500), Kevin Iacofano (380,000), Ana Marquez (319,400), Max Silver (259,000), Ludovic Lacay (242,800), Ari Engel (240,300), and Darren Elias (224,100).
Day 3 will kick off at Noon local time on Sunday, and the money bubble ought to burst early on. Of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the latest and greatest from the largest EPT Prague in history!.
While you wait, check out this EPT10 Prague Hand Analysis with Jonathan Little:
on the table and action was directly on Williams. The American Team Pro made a 10,500 continuation bet and the first three players were easy to get rid of. Austrian Christian Golob in the big blind called however and check called another 21,700 when the 
and Golob checked for a third time. Williams thought about it, but eventually checked behind.
and you could just feel the rest of the table being curious as to what Williams had. They weren't going to find out though as he double checked his cards and threw them in the muck. Williams still has 216,000 left, Golob plays well over 300,000. "You're a brave man!" said the small blind admiring Golob's play.
had both Shorr (
) and Levi (
) covered. The 
board didn't improve anybody and Von Kriegenbergh was stacking chips for some time.
on the flop and Lacay bet out 20,000. That bet didn't faze Rettenmaier though, who didn't need much time before calling. The turn brought the 
into play and Lacay checked. Rettenmaier bet out 33,200 and Lacay thought about it for awhile before announcing to be all in. Rettenmaier looked a tiny bit concerned but called almost immediately anyway. Lacay showed his 
hit the felt. The dealer began counting Lacay's stack but it was clear from the get go to the players involved that Lacay (130,000) had more than Rettenmaier (110,000).
into a set on 
. The up and down straight draw didn't materialize for the Season's 8 winner which made his twenty minute break into a break as long as he wanted it to be.
rainbow Alekberovas lead out for 4,000. The initial raiser made the call and Baumann raised it up to 12,000.
as the turn. After two checks Baumann shoved all in for her remaining 23,000. Alekberovas looked her up showing 
. Baumann needed a king but wouldn't get one on the river.
he responded, claiming he was getting the right price. A few other players at the table were not happy about the time he took, one pointing out that there were no TV cameras on him.
, which both players checked.
completed the board on the river, Mateos checked and then folded to a bet of 8,000 by Alexander Lakhov.
completed the board on the river, Lakhov led out for 2,100 and Mateos folded.
