Thursday, 28th March 2024 21:41
Home / Uncategorized / IPT Malta: Lemaire ahead after Day 2

Day 2 of IPT Malta was short, sharp and left several hundred players languishing on the rail. It took just five and a half hours for the field of 513 to be reduced to just 191 with the final 30 minutes of day seeing that number drop further to less than 170. Everyone who made the money is guaranteed a minimum payout of €1,740 but the €221,200 saved for the winner is big enough that even Martin Jacobson admitted to being impressed.

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Day 2 chip leader Hugo Lemaire

The Swede finished with 70,500 but it was Frenchman Hugo Lemaire who finished on top with 689,500 despite losing a 450,000 pot with aces to Mike Neuens’ queens. That pot put Neuens into second place with 652,500 with Guy Bachar, who started third in chips, reclaiming his third place with 599,000. Other big stacks include EPT9 Barcelona Super High Roller runner-up JC Alvarado (579,000) and Eureka4 Prague champion Balazs Botond (559,000).

All three members of Team PokerStars Pro managed to make it into Day 3, Matthias De Meulder started the shortest of the three but ended up with 293,500, ahead of his brother Christophe (282,000). Jan Heitmann also made it comfortably through with 115,900.

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Jan Heitmann and Christophe De Meulder

Day 3 will start at 12pm CET tomorrow with another six levels scheduled, though like today there is a multitude of side events that will keep everyone excited while later on tonight there is the final start day for the IPT Malta Cup.

IPT Malta Cup

Swedish player Daniel Nilsson led the 89 players who made it through Day 1b yesterday with 124,700. The single re-entry tourney has three start days and Day 1b had 368 entries – including 45 players who fired off a second €300 bullet. Others who made it through Day 1b include American Corbin White (who also entered and busted twice on Day 1a), WSOP bracelet winner and EPT regular Konstantin Puchkov and German player Manfred Sierke who lives here in Malta. In total, five players go in to Day 2 tomorrow with bigger stacks than Giovanni Rizzo who led Day 1a’s 33 survivors.

Other side events

There are also several other events going on today including the €500 Deepstack Turbo which began at midday. There is also the €200 Pot-limit Omaha High/Low, three €100 Flipout tournaments and a Hyperturbo €500 tournament at midnight. We’ll have the results of all of these events tomorrow, keep checking the PokerStars Blog for details.

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