EPT Grand Final Day 2: Nergard Leads And Thorsson Makes Comeback

On Monday, Day 2 of the European Poker Tour Grand Final (EPT Grand Final) resumed when the 299 remaining players who survived the fields from both starting days returned to the felt.

For Day 2 six full levels where planned, however, the bubble approached at the end of day’s play with Jean Thorel moving all-in on what was meant to be the last hand. He ended up doubling and the decision was made to continue play until all players had reached the money. It was a lengthy process, but eventually the bubble burst when Damien Rony moved all-in with A-K against Ivan Freitez‘s J-J. He couldn’t manage to improve his hand on any of the streets, making Rony the unfortunate bubble boy.

David Sonelin, an online poker qualifier, was the chip leader heading into Day 2, however, all of that changed during the day’s play, and he finished up with a below average stack. Sonelin was replaced by Norway’s Ole Kristian Nergard at the top of the leaderboard, and just behind him is Kristoffer Thorsson, the winner of the Amsterdam Master Classics.

The 19 year-old Ole Kristian Nergard demonstrated a great deal of controlled aggression, knocking out players left and right since the start of play on Day 1b. He continued this momentum all day and was never outside of the top five chip counts, finishing the day with 726,000.

Without question, Swede’s Kristoffer Thorsson made the largest amount of progress on Day 2. He started the day with 21,800 in chips, less than the starting stack of the first day. Yet, despite this seemingly uphill battle, within a couple of  hours of the day’s play he was up amongst the chip leaders. A big reason for that was getting a double-up through Brian England, when his queens sucked out on England’s kings.

During the later levels of Day 2, Thorsson managed to bust out another two players, one of them being Sami Kelopuro, which put him up to around 600,000 at that point. By the end of the day, he finished with 701,500 which was good for second place overall, an amazing comeback.

Other survivors on Day 2 with big stacks and a real chance of taking down the tournament include EPT Berlin champion Ben Wilinofsky in eighth place with 533,000. Melanie Weisner is in fifth place with 543,500 and Victor Ramdin is in 10th place with 494,500.

Those with lowish to medium sized stacks include:

• Surinder Sunar
• Tobias Reinkemeier
• Ted Forrest

Some of the players who weren’t as lucky to survive Day 2:

• David Vamplew
• Michael Keiner
• Kevin Stani
• Florian Langmann
• Leo Margets
• Nicolas Chouity
• Noah Boeken