EPT London: Quo Vedes

Six levels of poker served with the usual dollop of drama and coated in rich tension gravy. It’s a tried and tested EPT recipe, passed down from season to season, good for some highs, some lows and a whole lot to talk about in the middle. What’s left at the end of it is 111 players from the 730 who started. That’s the short version. For more go back a few hours and start from there.

It seemed impossible at the start of the day that we had any chance of reaching the money by the close, but as the day progressed on and the number of players remaining ticked down, it suddenly became a possibility. Would Monday be a pay day for everyone returning at high noon? Not quite. Call it cruel and unusual punishment but seven players must return tomorrow, and leave tomorrow, empty handed. Tonight their only comfort is that they don’t yet know it’s them.

Chip leader Tommy Vedes

But the man closest to being a dead cert for financial compensation as you can get in this game is Tommy Vedes, tournament chip leader who tonight has 585,000 reasons to be cheerful. A few others will sleep soundly come to think of it, each breaking the 400k barrier: Rui Milhomens (488,000), Jean Montury (483,500), Harri Suni (423,000), Jeff Lisandro (414,000) and Antonio Buonanno (407,500).

Beyond them there was a mixed bag of fortune for Team PokerStars Pros: Thorson OUT, Eastgate IN, Phillips OUT, Wu IN, Veldhuis OUT, Mayrinck IN, Demidov OUT, Mattern IN. There were more OUTS, including Fernandez, Guillen, De Korver, Brown, Langmann, Kravchenko, Ruthenberg and Ramdin but not enough INS to continue with the call and response thing. Check out the full official list on the chip count page.

Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck

A happy Kevin Schaffel

PokerStars sponsored players were among those faring well. Sponsored player Kevin Schaffel became one of the stories of the day. While he jets back to Las Vegas in less than a month’s time with the intention of taking down the World Series Main Event, his performance in London bodes well and he may be reaching optimum form. Down to an achingly low stack of less than 10,000 earlier today, he turned that into 150,000 in the space of four hands, then 300,000 a little later. As he reached the finishing line today Schaffel had 406,500 to bag up.

Then there was former England international footballer Teddy Sheringham, fresh from a 14th place finish in the WSOPE days ago, who did his own version of that without getting quite so close to the felt. He romps home tonight with 378,000 in the bag.

Teddy Sheringham

Others who remain firmly in their seats include last night’s chip leader Nikolai Senninger, Kevin McPhee, Annette Obrestad, Bobby Firestone (a name long overdue an award), Nick Gibson, Darus Suharto, John Juanda, Chris Ferguson and Benny Spindler, while the likes of Erik Seidel, Huck Seed, Carlos Mortensen, David Williams, day one chip leader Mario Cordero and Max Pescatori all busted today.

Remind yourself of their path to greatness and all the other titbits from day two at the links below:

Level 10 updates
Level 11 updates
Level 12 updates
Level 13 updates
Level 14 updates
Level 15 updates

London blooming Sunday
Side events drawing big names
Big field, big names, big cash
A round with table 23
You know you make me Antoine Saout
One for the books
Ups and downs of Team PokerStarsPro

If you’ve made it this far as a Swede, German or an Italian, and still can’t understand a word of all this, you might prefer our foreign language blogs. Just find an English speaking friend to translate these instructions. As usual, pictures were provided by the shutter-finger of Neil Stoddart and catch up with the video blogs on PokerStars.tv.

On the shoulder of Annette Obrestad

We’ll be back here at noon sharp for day three. See you there.