The field was slashed Monday at the European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final Main Event as more than 300 players were reduced to just 114 on Day 2. It is an extremely close race for the pole position as Germans Ole Schemion and Christopher Frank are one-two with 477,700 chips and 465,200 chips, respectively. Jose Carlos Garcia is bunched up with them with 461,200 and Thomas Popov is not far behind with 413,500 chips. It’s more than a 100,000 chip drop to fifth, but the next group is also compact, as only 15,000 chips separate fifth through tenth.
Schemion has been one of the best live tournament players in the world over the last few years, currently ranking second in the Global Poker Index (GPI) top 100. He won the GPI Player of the Year Award in 2013 and finished as the runner-up in 2014. Going back to 2012, he had two big wins in a row, taking the Partouche Poker Tour Grand Final and Master Classics of Poker Main Event. Over the last couple years, he has produced big score after big score; it would be silly to list them all. Interestingly, though, he does not have a title in a European Poker Tour, World Poker Tour, or World Series of Poker championship event. All told, Ole Schemion has over $7.7 million in live tournament earnings.
One of the more dramatic hands of the day came early on, at the end of Level 10. According to PokerNews.com, Joep van den Bijgaart raised pre-flop to 1,800 only to see Philippe Narboni and one other player move all-in after him. He made the call and the hands were turned over. Van den Bijgaart had pocket Kings, Narboni had pocket Queens and the other player, you guessed it, revealed pocket Jacks. The flop came down Q-8-3, giving Narboni the lead. The 6 on the turn gave Van den Bijgaart a flush draw, but the river shut that hope down and Narboni won the hand. Narboni had the most chips of the three, so it was a double-knockout.
The fun of the poker tournament was nearly dampened during an early break. According to a post on the PokerStars blog, Lasse Frost was heading to the restroom when his stomach began to feel weird and then he suddenly blacked out. He was rushed to a local hospital and while we do not know what exactly was wrong, he was able to return to the tournament a few hours later. In fact, he might not even know what happened, as he did not understand the French the hospital staff spoke. Despite being blinded off for a long time, though, Lasse is still in the Main Event with 95,100 chips.
2015 European Poker Tour Grand Final Main Event – Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. Ole Schemion – 477,700
2. Christopher Frank – 465,200
3. Jose Carlos Garcia – 461,200
4. Thomas Popov – 413,500
5. Aviv Meir – 300,000
6. Jason Mercier – 296,400
7. Joao Simao – 294,300
8. Frederik Pedersen – 292,100
9. Anatoly Chen – 291,200
10. Vanessa Selbst – 285,000
