Sixteen Players Survive in the Hunt for ￡31,257; Arlie Shaban Nearly Bubbles
Only sixteen players are left out of the original 889 entries that were made in the tournament. Kyle McCague is the chip leader after two days of play with 3,035,000. He is closely followed by Carl Von Dobeln (2,750,000) and Thomas Lewis (2,550,000). Jasper 'Oemtoeoemtoe' van der Veen is the last remaining Lex Veldhuis community member. He bagged 615,000 chips after a brutal day where almost every single community member was eliminated.
Others that made it through include Gareth Smith (2,460,000), Halil Gecaj (2,180,000), and Steve Berto (1,600,000). The players will continue tomorrow at 12 noon local time. The remaining 16 players are all guaranteed to take home at least ￡1,600. There are 38 minutes and 41 seconds remaining in the 25th level of the tournament, which has blinds of 25,000/50,000 and a big blind ante of 50,000.
Only three PokerStars Ambassadors started the day, but only one made it into the money. Mason 'Pyefacepoker' Pye, James Mackenzie, and Arlie Shaban all played, but only Shaban managed to sneak in a cash.
It was Hasan Gul who started the day as chip leader after he bagged 595,500 on the fourth starting day. Gul managed to get into the money but he wasn't able to make it to the second day.
Day 2 Action
The day started with 178 players remaining out of the 889 that showed up through eight different starting flights, starting from Friday, September 27th. Among those 178 are plenty of community members that tried their hardest during the starting days to make it to the second day. Unfortunately, there were only 107 places paid and it was a battle for the community to make it through to the money. Players who were eliminated before the money was reached include Nick 'Bizzo' Jenkins, Ben 'TheBenMartin98' Martin, Twitch streamer Henri 'Buehlero' Buehler, and PokerStars Ambassador Mackenzie of OP-Poker.
Mackenzie got his chips in the middle with no community cards on the table with ace-jack against five-four suited of community member Van der Veen. Van der Veen managed to river a straight flush to send Mackenzie to the rail only a few spots before the money was reached. Another PokerStars Ambassador, Shaban, was eliminated on the bubble. He was involved in a three-way all-in with pocket kings against pocket jacks of Roar Bonaunet and pocket sixes of Gareth Smith. Smith hit a set on the flop. Shaban and Bonaunet weren't able to catch back up and were both eliminated on the exact bubble. Shaban had the bigger stack and he secured a min-cash of ￡320.
The speed of play didn't really speed up after the bubble burst and the average stack dropped to a little over twenty big blinds. It is now back up to over 30 big blinds after the day had ended and the bust outs happened quicker and quicker. A couple of the players that were eliminated in the process were Peter 'Glaspeer' Glasbergen (88th - ￡391), Daniel 'Neryus' Moes (78th - ￡445), Rocco Blank (69th - ￡498), PokerStars Twitch & Ambassador Assistant Brandon Trong Nguyen (59th - ￡569), and Kevin 'Care_Teddy' van Veen (44th - ￡818) all were eliminated. All the way from Adelaide, Australia, was Damiano 'DAMMO_23' Aloi. Aloi busted out of the tournament in 38th place for ￡818.
One of the last players from the community still in was Glenn 'Letjal' Van Ingelghem. He was nursing a short stack for multiple levels already when he finally got his money in the middle in what turned out to be the last hand of the day. The player in the small blind jammed all in, covering Van Ingelghem, and the Belgian Veldhuis Moderator called with ace-queen. He was ahead against the ace-five of his opponent but he, unfortunately, wasn't able to hold on to the best hand when a five was dealt on the river.
Tom 'Predator410' Parsons Wins a Platinum Pass
During Lex Live 2 there was a scavenger hunt and visitors had to complete certain tasks to get stamps. If one had ten stamps you were eligible to win a special prize, but what that prize actually was? It turned out that 24 visitors had 10 or more stamps and they were put on a table in groups of eight. They would play two flips to determine two winners and the six players that survived got to play a timed tournament for a platinum pass.
England's Tom Parsons, in the community known as 'Predator410', was the lucky one to take home the special prize and he is on his way to Barcelona for the 2020 PSPC thanks to Veldhuis and his event in London.
The tournament will continue on October 6th, noon local time. PokerNews will be on site to deliver delayed coverage so the stream won't be spoilered.