Once players were in the money, we saw a lot more movement with the chips, which resulted in a string of quick eliminations.
Gavin Smith and Ravi Raghavan were amongst the first to be eliminated, collecting a minimum cash each. Jean Philippe Piquette picked up another cash, giving him three total in the Fall Classic, as he also finished shortly after the bubble burst. WPT Champion and legendary poker pro Shawn Buchanan was eliminated not too long after.
Antonio Esfandiari decided to try a magic trick with 
and 4-bet shoved a nearly average stack preflop. Unfortunately for him, Darren Elias made the call with 
and flopped quads, eliminating Antonio, who increased his total earning by 0,027%.
Meanwhile, other players were building empires with their recently acquired chips. The day ended with five players sitting above the million chip mark, and the chipleader is poker pro Ludovic Lacay, who picked up a massive pot near the end when he called off a bluff versus Byron Kaverman. Ludovic came close to winning a WPT title back in October 2007, when he finished runner up to Markus Lehmann in the WPT Spanish Championship Barcelona Main Event, so he is surely determined to go for the win and bring that WPT Montreal Main Event Belt back to his home in France. Since then, Ludovic has won a major title, placing first in the EPT San Remo Main Event 2012.
Seasoned poker pro Jonathan Little cruised his way into the money comfortably, and he remained relatively quiet until the last few hands of the night, where he shot up the leaderboard with a few big pots. He ended up bagging just over 1 million chips, which doubles the average stack. Right behind him in stacks in 2-time WPT Champion Guillaume Darcourt, past WPT Montreal Champion Amir Babakhani, and a little further back is Yann Dion, a fierce player from Quebec who is making a big name for himself with his recent performances, such as a final table at this year’s PCA Main Event, and a deep run in the WSOP Main Event this summer.
Sitting around the average mark is online phenomenon Griffin Benger, or Flush_Entity, who is making a successful transition from the virtual table to the live felt. Earlier this year he won his first major title, finishing first in the € 10,000 EPT High Roller Berlin.
EPT Champion Kevin MacPhee is still in contention holding 31 big blinds, although he lost a considerable amount of his stack near the end of the Day 2. However this experienced tournament player has the ability to work with any stack and run it up to go for the win.
Victor Ramdin, Mohsim Charania and Lily Kiletto also made it through the day, but are coming back as some of the shorter stacks tomorrow. George Caragiorgas and Carter Swidler bagged and tagged their stacks as well, and are both a little below the average, but still deep given the structure.
In the end 59 players were left with chips and a seat at the end of Day 2, and tomorrow the day is scheduled to end when the field falls to the final 27.
You can find the chip counts and seating arrangements here for Day 3, which resumes Tuesday at 12pm.
We’ll see you then!