EPT: Negreanu Leads with 80 Left in Vienna

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EPT: Negreanu Leads with 80 Left in Vienna

Jessica Welman | October 29, 2010

Will this be the tournament Negreanu captures poker's triple crown?

The 278 survivors from the two Day 1s of the PokerStars.net EPT Vienna Main Event returned to the Kursalon Palace with hopes of thriving and surviving the day and, more importantly, making the money. Most of those players came up well short of the 80-man money bubble, including some of the early big stacks who came into Day 2 with high hopes only to hit the rail early.

The day began with a bang as overall Day 2 chip leader Laurence Houghton quickly relinquished the top spot when he ran his pocket tens into pocket aces. That was the beginning of the end for Houghton, as he was one of nearly 200 players to hit the rail on Day 2. Other notable eliminations included Alexia Portal, Boris Becker, Fatima de Melo, Erik Friberg, Stephen Chidwick, Jeff Hakim, Pieter de Korver, Jake Cody, and Lex Veldhuis.

While Houghton was hurting, Daniel Negreanu was having a day pros dream of. According to his @RealKidPoker Twitter feed, jokingly telling his followers, “ I’m a real beast AA vs KK AA vs JJ AA vs KK 10-10 vs KK.” The final hand Negreanu is referring to is a massive pot in which he binked a lucky ten on the river to bust fellow big stack Adam Jerney and take the chip lead as the money bubble approached.

Day 2 play ended when the players burst the money bubble with 80 players remaining. The unfortunate honor of bubble boy went to Gianni Giaroni, who ran ace-king into aces to head home without a payday.

Negreanu ended the day on top with 893,000 chips, while his next closest competitor, Antonio Buonanno, packed up 704,500. Other big names still alive in the event include Luke “FullFlush1” Schwartz, Team PokerStars Pros Martin Hruby, Angel Guillen, and Nacho Barbero, Jeff “yellowsub” Williams, Surinder Sunar, and Tomer Berda.

Day 3 will see the field thin from 80 down to the final 24. Each player is guaranteed at least an €8,000 payday, but most will be sad to walk away with anything but the top payout of €700,000 (roughly $967,000). Here are the top ten chip counts from the end of Day 2 at the PokerStars.net EPT Vienna Main Event:

1. Daniel Negreanu – Canada – 893,000
2. Antonio Buonanno – Italy – 704,500
3. Toni Judet – Romania – 704,000
4. Jose Severino – Panama – 637,500
5. Manole Mahai – Romania – 604,500
6. Riekus Hein Wijermars – Netherlands – 530,000
7. Michael Eiler – Germany – 438,500
8. Tommie Janssen – Netherlands – 395,000
9. Fabrizio Gonzalez – Uruguay – 373,500
10. Tonio Roeder – Germany – 371,000

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