When play started today 267 players remained; some were looking to further increase their sizable stacks, whilst others were looking for a much-needed double up to give themselves a fighting chance. All were intent on making the top 72, the qualifying point at which you'd get paid.
Of course whilst a min-cash of £1,050 is better than a Glasgow kiss, having made it that far eyes understandably start to drift up the pay scale towards the £101,000 the winner will claim.
The bubble burst during level 15 when Liam Spence shoved the turn with top pair and an open-ended straight draw, only to find Michael Kemp already had the made straight. With that the floodgates opened and by the end of the day just 49 remained. Best placed to take a shot at the six-figure first placed payday is Chris Derrick, he had a great day at the felt running his start of day stack of 104,400 all the way up to 554,500
That Derrick has the chip lead heading into Day 3 is chiefly down to a huge pot he played against Charalampos Lappas. On a [5c][Qd][Jc] flop he check-shoved with [9c][8c] Lappas called with aces, but a ten on the river gave Derrick a 375,000 pot and sent Lappas tumbling out in 60th.
Other players to position themselves well during 'moving day' were Przemysław Dajer (368,000), Nicolau Villa-Lobos (353,500), Jamie Sykes (343,500) and Mikel Villaescusa (431,500). The fact the latter sits second is also down to cracking aces. This time they belonged to Liam Batey. On the very last hand of the night Villaescusa was all-in and at risk with [Ah][Qh] but made a flush to knock Batey all the way down to 83,500. Poker - it's a cruel game sometimes.
Two players were wearing the red spade with pride today, one each from Team PokerStars Pro and Pokerstars Team Online. Despite being a live tournament it would be Grzegorz 'DaWarsaw' Mikielewicz from PokerStars Team Online who would fair better than Team PokerStars Pro's Jake Cody.
Despite starting Day 2 with less than he started Day 1 with and being almost permanently below average, the Pole managed to keep enough traction to stay alive by winning small and medium pots. We didn't see him all-in at any stage of the day and come the end of the day he bagged and tagged 83,500. "I started the day with 15 big blinds and ended it with 15 big blinds," he said matter of factly.
Meanwhile Jake Cody just couldn't find a spot to spin up his 15,500 stack to something more considerable. And, when he eventually found a spot to move all-in over an active player's raise with [Kd][Js] he ran smack bang into Sunny Chattha's pocket aces.
There were four former UKIPT champions in the field today, each hoping to get one day and several hundred places closer to becoming the fourth double UKIPT winner. For both Richard Sinclair and Richard Evans that dream will have to wait until the tour touches down in Cork. But, both Jamie Burland and David Vamplew are still in contention, though they had contrasting days.
It was a day of grinding for Burland, an early double up gave him a workable stack, but he never had much more than average. That is until he doubled up near the end with queen-ten against ace-jack, spiking a ten on the flop to finish on 245,500. He seemed to enjoy himself nonetheless, especially when he was moved next to UKIPT2 Nottingham runner-up Brett Angell early on in the day, a table that contained Rob Yong too, until he bust shortly before the money.
In contrast Vamplew was almost permanently in the top five of the chip counts, he started the day with the fifth biggest stack and busted someone on the very first hand to with a set against top pair top kicker. Despite losing a 220,000 flip in the last level he finished with 316,000, good for sixth place. All this despite being sick, "Quick lemsip to keep me going," he tweeted as the bubble approached.
As well as Evans, Sinclair and Yong other notables who fell by the wayside during the carnage that is day two included: Jason Tompkins, Chris Dowling, Kevin Killeen, Dara O'Kearney, Nick Wealthall, Andrew Teng, Dom Kay and both Sunny and Chaz Chattha.
The remaining players will be back in action from 12 noon here at The Balmoral Hotel. Full chip counts of those who remain, including Brett Angell (286,500) Kevin Williams (160,000), Manig Loeser (183,500) and Thomas Ward (259,500), who's looking to make a second straight UKIPT Edinburgh final table, can be seen here. And you can see the Day 3 seat draw here.
You can catch up with all today's action and find out who's cashed and for how much by clicking on the links below, we'll be back tomorrow as we play down to the final table of eight.
Levels 9-12
Levels 13-16
Prize pool and Payouts
All photos are copyright of Mickey May, she hasn't had a Caesar salad for days so she'll give you a good dressing down should you steal her pictures.