Friday, 29th March 2024 00:18
Home / Uncategorized / Jonathan Weekes proves Day 2 is EPT moving day
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Day 2 here at EPT Tallinn was the definition of aggressive poker. The word call was way outnumbered by the word raise throughout our coverage. To look around the room though you wouldn’t think the players were enjoying this brand of poker as emotions were kept in check and it can be hard to tell, just from looking at players’ faces if they’ve won or lost a pot. With aggressive poker and ice-cold emotions it comes as no surprise to find out that Tallinn is in northern Europe. Here and EPT Copenhagen are the yang to EPT Deauville and San Remo’s emotional yin.

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Jonathan Weekes is the runaway chip leader

Day 1s of an EPT are about survival. You can’t win a five day tournament in nine hours of play but you only need a fraction of that time to lose it. Day 2s are a totally different animal and have to be treated accordingly. A lot of players refer to it as Moving day as it’s a time to up the aggressiveness, gather chips and move up the leader-board. Obviously if everyone’s trying to accumulate chips there will be casualties and the fact we only have 84 players remaining from a starting 210 is testament to that. The most successful mover of today was Jonathan Weekes who went from 145,400 to claim the chip lead with 751,900. Some distance behind him is Team PokerStars Pro Ivan Demidov who went from 80,100 to 480,000. Other players lurking near the top of the counts are Perica Bukara (336,100), Steven van Zadelhoff (312,400) and Mattias Jorstedt (310,100). Full counts for the day can be found on our chip count page here.

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Ivan Demidov: happy with his day

Poker is an individual mind sport and not a team game, let’s get that straight. There is a great amount of camaraderie amongst the Team PokerStars Pros but when they’re at the felt it’s everyman for himself. This was highlighted by the action surrounding Team Pro debutant Ville Wahlbeck. Firstly he eliminated Juan Manuel Pastor after the Spaniard attempted a squeeze play with 9♣ 10♣ but the Finn went nowhere with his Kâ™  Qâ™  . There was no suck-out. Wahlbeck himself felt the Team Pro force when he was eliminated by Demidov. Demidov held a jack-high flush and managed to get Wahlbeck to commit his stack on the river with an inferior holding (he mucked and left without showing his hole cards). Joep van den Bijgaart and Alexander Kravchenko followed these two out the door along with Alfio Battisti from Team PokerStars Online.

There are still four remaining members flying the PokerStars flag along with the already mentioned Demindov: Luca Pagano (263,700), Arnaud Mattern (152,700), Michael Keiner (52,800) and Katja Thater (40,800) who is also the representing female gender as the last woman standing.

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Luca Pagano gearing up for a record extending 15th cash

The EPT likes to choose destinations that are nice places to visit so it’s not all about the poker. Along with historical landmarks Tallinn is famed for its nightlife with an abundance of bars and clubs. So if you like to party (and we do) there is no excuse not to hit the tiles. And tonight there really is NO excuse as PokerStars is hosting a spectacular party at Club BonBon to celebrate the launch of EPT Season 7. Its starts at 9pm, so if you’re in town you’ll know where to find us!

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A scene from Tallinn before night time descends

Tomorrow will be all about money for 56 of our remaining 84 players. The first aim will be to navigate the bubble to actually make the cash and make this trip a profitable one. Then it will be about how much money can be made. We will all be back at 12pm local time where we will play five more 75-minute levels or stop at 24 players remaining if that comes first. We will be here with heavy heads trying our very best to bring you the action.

To catch up on the action from the day click on the links below:

Level 10 & 11 updates
Level 12, 13 & 14 updates

If English isn’t your thing or you prefer a more efficient direct look at the day’s play I shall direct you to the German blog here.

Or if you want to try and decipher the ramblings of Lina Olofsson try out the Swedish blog, found here.

As always our thanks and credits goes to EPT resident snapper Neil Stoddart.

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