UKIPT Dublin Day 2 came and went over another eight one-hour levels today. It was the day where hopes were dashed and financial dreams were rewarded. That's because the bubble was burst during the sixth level of play.
More on that later. First to a man who had a similar story to what Max Silver experienced yesterday. Daniel Stacey started the day with 53,600 but went on a tear from the off and ended the day with 806,000. At the end of play he told the Blog, "Running mega hot, it's been mad. Hottest I've ever run. I didn't think it was possible to run this good."
He eliminated Marc James when his kings managed to stay ahead of ace-queen and then he eliminated Sam Razavi just before the bubble burst in a pot worth 200,000. Razavi flopped top set with pocket aces but couldn't pry Stacey off a flush draw that came in on the river. Stacey put Razavi all in and the former UKIPT champion had committed too much and called off the rest.
Not a bad day for a man who satellited into the event in the first place.
Silver started the day as massive chip leader and got off to a flier in the first level as he flew past the 400,000 mark. He had to slow down at some point though and he mostly treaded water - albeit it in the poker equivalent of a penthouse suite swimming pool - for most of the of the day and ended on 602,000 after a late surge.
Other players who are right in contention for a really deep run tomorrow include Michael Naughton (468,000), Vytenis Salickas (405,000), Kevin Killeen (375,000), Dean Hutchison (371,000) and Daragh Davey (360,000). Tom Hall (135,000), Joeri Zandvliet (279,000), Jack Salter (167,000), Ludovic Geilich (98,000), Deborah Worley-Roberts (108,000) and Rational Group employee Dirk Thijssen (181,000) can never be counted out.
Now, to that bubble. There was pretext to the hand that cost Tim Chung his tournament life without a bean in his pocket. He lost a 300,000-chip pot to Rational Group employee Stefan Ebinger in an aces versus kings set up in the blinds.
Down to less than six big blinds he moved all in from the button with ace-four. He was called by both players in the blinds, one of them being Padraig Burns with pocket jacks that made a set on the turn to burst the bubble.
Chung wasn't alone in not cashing today. Rational Group employees Rick Dacey, Lee Jones and Michael Josem all departed before the money. They helped form a group that included Full Tilt Poker Ambassadors Sin Melin, Martins Adeniya and Dermot Blain.
The PokerStars Players party had been thoughtfully scheduled for today so at least there is a place for all of them to drown any sorrows still lingering in their souls. For the remaining players it offers a place to test their discipline with a long day of poker expected tomorrow.
Play will resume at midday and will continue until a final table of eight has been assembled. Until then it's party time!
To catch up on today's exciting action please click on the links below, you can also see tomorrow's seat draw, start of day chip counts and who's finished where by clicking on the links below.
Levels 9-12
Levles 13-17
Prize pool and payouts
Day 3 seat draw
Day 3 chip counts
Prizewinners
Photos courtesy of Danny Maxwell, you can see all today's images here.