When we last dipped our toe into the shark infested waters of the record-breaking High Roller we were approaching the business end of Day 1.

At that juncture Stephen Chidwick was leading the field, which consisted of 283 unique players and a fistful of re-entries from some of poker’s top echelon of players. Despite the field being stacked with talent, no one could prize the chip lead from Chidwick and he ended Day 1 on top.

In all there were 378 entries on Day 1, that’s 290 unique entries with 88 re-entries. Some of those who ran out of bullets included: Anton Wigg, Doug Polk, Eugene Katchalov and Jonathan Duhamel.

Chidwick – top dog heading into Day 2

In all 171 players made it through to Day 2 to contest the huge prize pool. As with the Main Event, registration was open until the start of Day 2. Five players, including Nacho Barbero, took up the option to exchange €10,000 for 50,000 chips for the first time and ten players, one of whom was Lukas Berglund, re-entered, taking the total entries to 393 and Day 2 players to 191.

To put that in perspective, that’s more than the total field from the EPT9 Barcelona High Roller event which attracted 138 entries and 42 re-entries.

As play got under way at 12 pm CET, with blinds at 1,000/2,000 300 ante the top ten looked like this:

Stephen Chidwick, 299,000
Dan Smith, 294,600
Jason Mercier, 291,400
Sebastian Von Toperczer, 270,700

formSmith going for yet another title in Barcelona

Alexander Roumeliotis, 266,300
Dmitry Yurasov. 255,500
Mustapha Kanit, 236,400
Niall Farrell, 235,800
Conor Shelly, 235,200
Thomas Muhlocker, 225,500

Others well placed to make a run included: Steve O’Dwyer (213,400), Vanessa Selbst (205,000), Toby Lewis (189,800), Marc Etienne McLaughlin (181,600) and Shaun Deeb (173,900).

The prize pool revealed that there was a massive €3,851,400 up for grabs, shared between the top 55 finishers. The winner is slated to pick up €747,200, while a final table appearance will lock up €90,900. A min-cash on the other hand may not prove profitable for some, worth €18,900.

The High Rollers have just entered into their sixth 60 minute level of the day and the field has been reduced to just 76 players. The blinds are currently 3,000/6,000 1,000 ante and the average stack sits at 43 big blinds.

These are the headlines after the first five levels of the day:

Joentausta has jumped to the top

– Aku Joentausta is the current chip leader. The Finn has got a stack of 800,000 after eliminating Bryn Kenney is a huge pot.

– Fedor Holz is having a stonking festival. He’s currently second with 684,000. He’s got a hot hand right now having won a €2,000 side event, finished fourth in another €2,000 side event and cashed in the Main Event (101st, €12,050). Never heard of him? Don’t worry Sarah Grant caught up with him earlier this week when he played the €50,000 Super High Roller.

– EPT Grand Final Champion Nicolas Chouity is in the top 10 having won a huge pot with aces against the kings of Michiel Brummelhuis.

– Mickey Petersen is leading the Red Spade brigade. He’s cruising with a stack of 440,000 after winning a big pot against November Niner Bruno Politano. Others representing Team PokerStars Pro and Team Online include George Danzer (274,000), Jason Mercier (227,000) and Marc-Andre Ladouceur (100,800).

– The list of notables who’ve busted on Day 2 is as long as some of the queues this week. It includes Davidi Kitai, Gaelle Baumann, Jason Mo, Vanessa Selbst, Marvin Rettenmaier, Pratyush Buddiga, Steve O’Dwyer, Mike McDonald, Ben Wilinofsky, David Yan and defending champ Thomas Muehloecker.

Petersen – is leading the PokerStars charge

Follow all the action from the tournament floor on the main EPT Barcelona page. There’s hand-by-hand coverage in the panel at the top, including chip counts, and feature pieces below. Follow the action from the High Roller on the High Roller page. There’s also EPT Live, which is streaming action from Day 5 of the Main Event.

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