The field has been reduced to just 120 hopefuls and thus the clocks have been stopped to bag and tag nine players away from the money as previously announced by the tournament floor.
The last two casualties were David Lascar and Maria Lampropulos, who were ousted on neighboring tables at almost the same time.
First it was Lascar that open-shoved for 26,000 first to act and Jason Wheeler in the big blind used his last two remaining time bank extensions before making the call.
David Lascar:
Jason Wheeler:
The board came and Lascar headed to the rail.
Lampropulos raised to 7,500 and was called by two-time WSOP Main Event finalist Antoine Saout in the big blind. Saout bet the flop for 8,000 and Lampropulos called. After the turn, Saout bet 16,000 and Lampropulos shoved for what appeared tobe 40,000, the instant call of Saout followed.
Maria Lampropulos:
Antoine Saout:
Only a jack could help 2018 PCA champion Lampropulos, but instead it was the blank that fell on the river to end Day 2 with 120 players remaining.
With 120 players left, play was suspended one table shy of the bubble. For 111 players, a share of the €3,768,450 prize pool is up for grabs, with a mincash worth €9,400. The winner, crowned on Friday, May 4, will receive the first place prize of €712,000 and can call himself the 2018 EPT Monte-Carlo champion.
Peters soared to the overall chip lead in a big hand against Lucas "Bit2Easy" Reeves during the twilight portion of the day. Holding ace-eight in a four-bet pot, Peters flopped an eight and rivered an ace for aces up. The American overbet shoved on the river and Reeves called it off for his tournament life with ace-king. Reeves was eliminated and Peters scooped up a 500k pot to vault himself to the top spot.
Another top stack belongs to last year's Day 2 chipleader, Nick Petrangelo. Petrangelo amassed 463,000 in chips to make himself a prime contender for a deep run. Last year, Petrangelo's Day 2 chip lead ended up in a relatively disappointing 82nd place, and he's looking to improve on that performance this year. Other notables that bagged big include Ali Reza Fatehi (435,500), Ole Schemion (285,000), Sam Greenwood (246,000), Team PokerStars Online Randy "nanonoko" Lew (231,500), Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari (227,000) and 2015 EPT Monte Carlo champion Adrian Mateos (181,000).
The room was buzzing with excitement at the start of the day as all players played a flipout tournament to try and win the free $30,000 Platinum Pass that awaited the lucky winner. After winning three flipouts in a row, a loud cheer erupted from the Salle des Etoiles as Paul-Francois Tedeschi grabbed the Pass to punch himself a free ticket to the Bahamas and the PokerStars Players Championship next year.
After the buzz died down, players started Day 2 and late registration was closed. 777 entries were made into the Main Event, consisting of 594 unique players, 201 reentries and 2 no-shows. A late shower that tried to spin things up was Steve O'Dwyer, but he got eliminated in the very first hand of the day. The same empty-handed fate awaited Team PokerStars Pros Igor Kurganov, Celina Lin and Fatima Moreira de Melo, as well as Platinum Pass winner Tedeschi, Daniel Dvoress, Maria Lampropulos, Justin Bonomo, Isaac Haxton and Tsugunari Toma.