Petrov Bursts Bubble and Tops 46 Survivors After Day 2 in Sochi
The money bubble has burst on Day 2 of the 2019 PokerStars EPT Open Sochi RUB133,000 Main Event (~$2,040) and a field of 879 entries has been whittled down all the way to 46 survivors after 10 levels of 60 minutes each. Thanks to an additional 26 entries before the start, a prize pool of more than $1.6 million was created and the top 127 spots took home a share of it.
Before the cards went underway, Russia's famous TV presenter and commentator Dmitry Guberniev delivered the shuffle up and deal alongside Chris Moneymaker and the next EPT Main Event in Sochi from March 20th to 29th, 2020 was officially announced.
When the chips were bagged and tagged, four players ended up within a few big blinds and it was Vladislav Petrov that pipped Lidiya Kozenkova for the chip lead. Petrov ended the day with 1,452,000 and Kozenkova was close behind with 1,420,000, while Dmitriy Kopyl (1,300,000), Yi Ye (1,300,000), and Natalia Panchenko (1,147,000) round out the top five as only other chip millionaires.
The tale of the two chip leaders could not have been any different. Petrov was among the bigger stacks by the time the bubble took place and was the one responsible to burst it when his ace-queen spiked an ace on the river to beat the pocket queens of Maryo Baaziz.
At the same time, Kozenkova was nursing a short stack and managed to spin that up in the final levels of the night. A big hero-call with a pair of jacks on a queen-high board against Artem Metelskiy vaulted the former Casino Sochi staff member to the top before Petrov claimed two decent pots and the overnight lead.
Among the notables still in contention for Day 3 are Artur Osipov (978,000), Aleksey Istomin (683,000), Dmitry Ponomarev (643,000), Pavel Vershinin (633,000), Mikhail Zamyatin (581,000), 2019 WSOP bracelet winner Anatolii Zyrin (326,000), and Vyacheslav Goryachev (256,000).
The two PokerStars ambassadors Chris Moneymaker and Fatima Moreira De Melo survived the money bubble and busted shortly after in 119th and 118th place respectively. Other big names that cashed were Nikolay Fal, Simon Burns, Dmitrii Sukhorukov, Laurynas Levinskas, Gleb Kovtunov, Kiryl "angrymoron" Radzivonau, and Roman Korenev.
None of the four former EPT Main Event champions at the start of Day 2 made it to the money spots as Maxim Lykov, Arsenii Karmatckii, Andrey Pateychuk, and Dzmitry Urbanovich came up short in the frantic and fast-paced early stages. Lykov would fall against eventual big stack Kopyl when his ace-seven failed to get there against pocket queens.
Andrey Andreev and Anatolii Filonenko, who were the top two stacks heading into the day, also failed to make it to the money and were sent to the rail prior to the second break already. Others such as Mikhail Semin, Konstantin Puchkov, Denis Timofeev, Gerald Karlic, and Tobias Peters were gone by the time hand-for-hand mode was announced.
Once the bubble burst, the floodgates opened and the field was cut down considerably. All the 46 hopefuls that made it through so far will return to Casino Sochi after a good night's sleep and aim to reach the final table.
The action recommences at noon local time on Saturday, October 12th, 2019, with blinds of 8,000-16,000 and a big blind ante of 16,000. As of Day 3 and until the conclusion of the event, the level duration increases to 75 minutes and the PokerNews team will be right there until a champion is crowned.
