Troyanovskiy Leads Surviving 123 Players; Ivey & O'Dwyer Fall
Day 2 of the 2014 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final Main Event continued today as the surviving 347 players from the two starting flights returned for six more 75-minute levels of play. Actually, it’d be more than that as half a dozen players took advantage of late registration. When the final second ticked off the clock, just 123 would remain with Vladimir Troyanovskiy and his stack of 450,500 leading the way.
Once registration closed at the start of the day, the official numbers were released. The final EPT Main Event of Season 10 attracted 650 players, which was a nice increase over Season 9’s 531. That created a prize pool of €6.5 million. That will be distributed to the top 95 players with a hefty €1,240,000 reserved for the winner.
The day was characterized by eliminations, which included that of the defending champ Steve O’Dwyer. According to him, he had shoved his last ten big blinds in with king-nine suited. He had five opponents to overcome, but that proved too big a mission to accomplish as the player on the button woke up with pocket aces. With O'Dwyer out, Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden became the last finalist standing from last year’s final table, which is considered one of the most stacked in history.
Of course O’Dwyer wasn’t the only notable to fall. Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker was felled within the first few minutes, while his fellow Team Pro, the short-stacked Liv Boeree, followed him out the door a short time later after she failed to win a race. Likewise, Full Tilt Poker Professional Viktor "Isildur1" Blom hit the rail after running into pocket aces, while the other Professional, late registrant Gus Hansen, exited holding deuce-four.
Team PokerStars Pros who also bowed out of the tournament on Day 2 were Juan Manuel Pastor, Nacho Barbero, Humberto Brenes, Alex Kravchenko, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Marcel Luske, Mickey Petersen, Eugene Katchalov, George Danzer, Barry Greenstein, Marc-Andre Ladouceur and Ivan Demidov. Notables such as Max Altergott, Annette Obrestad, Byron Kaverman, Sorel Mizzi, David Peters, Timothy Adams, Mike “Timex” McDonald, Antonio Esfandiari, and Phil Ivey joined them on the rail.
Ivey had hit a heater earlier in the day to chip up to 240,000, and it looked like he was primed to make a deep run. Unfortunately a cooler in Level 13 (1,000/2,000/300) put an end to those hopes. It began when Italy’s Marcello Marigliano opened under the gun and received two callers. Ivey then called from the cutoff, the big blind came along, and five players took a flop of 
with two diamonds.
Action checked to Ivey and he promptly bet 15,000. The big blind called, and then Marigliano check-raised to 33,000. Two folds put action back on Ivey and he moved all in for roughly 160,000. The big blind folded and Marigliano made the call.
Ivey tabled 
for a flopped straight, but it was no good as Marigliano had flopped an even bigger straight with 
. Neither the turn nor river provided Ivey with a king to chop, and just like that the man was gone.
While many fell, an accomplished list of notables managed to make it through to Day 3 including Steven Silverman (369,900), Talal Shakerchi (365,800), Nick Maimone (358,800), Day 1b chip leader Hendrik Latz (278,400), Philipp Gruissem (268,000), Dani Stern (256,100), Sam Trickett (237,000), Ole Schemion (233,600), and Scott Clements (229,700). Likewise, members of Team PokerStars that punched their ticket were Johnny Lodden (326,500), Ville Wahlbeck (265,100), Angel Guillen (175,400), David Williams (145,900), and Andre Akkari (82,100).
At Noon local time on Tuesday, the surviving players will return to the Salles des Etoiles room at Le Sporting to play five 90-minute levels. During that time the money bubble will burst. The PokerNews Live Reporting will be on hand to capture all the action, so be sure to join us then.
In the meantime, find out how players take advantage of their breaks here in Monte Carlo: