Day 2 of the UKIPT certainly lived up to the "moving day" tagline today after the 273 returning players were whittled down to just 24 over the course of ten one-hour levels. As the dust settled on a long day, one man stood taller than all others, well, if he stood on top of his big pile of chips he certainly would.
PokerStars qualifier Adam Owen in known for his prowess in draw variations of poker, but today he proved he's not bad at reading boards either. He eliminated Casey Kastle on the last hand of the night after rivering an ace, and making a flush a while earlier helped him knock out Bart Lybaert and Mathieu Kuhne in one fell swoop. "I've never had a bag of chips this heavy!" he said at the close of play.
We're not surprised as it contained 2,171,000 and he leads from players such as Mark Foggin (1,870,000), Patrick Rooney (1,776,000), Samuel Vousden (1,608,000), James Akenhead (579,000) and the only remaining UKIPT champion left in the field, Thomas Finneran (935,000). Full counts can be seen by clicking here and check out the Day 3 seat draw as well.
Day 2 is also always the bubble day on the UKIPT and today was no different. It's one of the most emotional junctions of a poker tournament, but just like a good holiday coming to an end, it has to happen. The bubble actually burst without anyone realising at the time. How can that happen, you ask? Well, Idris Ambraisse and Pim Gieles both busted at the same time during hand-for-hand play - splitting 151st place money - meaning that the player who was eliminated in 153rd place was the last to leave with no money. That player was David Crilly and he had called all in for two big blinds whilst in the big blind. He found himself dominated and didn't find a way out.
He was not alone in leaving without any money today, as another 120 players had dreams of cashing dashed early on. Among them were Jonathan Rees, Nick Newport, Fernando Britto, Kerryjane Craigie, Rocco Palumbo, Matt Davenport, Daragh Davey, Jason Tompkins, Georgios Mavroulias, Simon Persson, Gareth Chantler and Friend of PokerStars Filipe Ramos.
One player who made the money but not the end of the day was defending champion Kevin Killeen. He busted in 33rd place during the last level of the night when his short-stack shove with ten-nine didn't work out well versus Paul Michaelis and his pocket sevens. Other notables who also cashed but failed to make Day 3 included fellow former champions Dean Hutchison (66th and Brett Angell (67th); Dan Carter (50th), Patrick Leonard (51st), David Clarkson (53rd), Andrew Chen (63rd), Dara O'Kearney (75th), Joel Micka (84th), Dermot Blain (87th), Charlie Carrel (88th), Chris Gordon (90th), Jeff Madsen (101st), Chris Dowling (108th), Joao Simao (132nd) and Kenny Hallaert (137th).
The Main Event has two more days to play but they'll be a one-day hiatus in between. The plan for tomorrow is to play down to a final table of eight players and then take a one-day break before coming back to play to a winner on Monday. Those eight lucky souls will get their 15 minutes of fame as the final will be live streamed on EPTLive.com.
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That's all for today folks, play will resume at midday tomorrow. For now, catch up on today's action by clicking the links below:
All photos are copyright of Mickey May