Soulier Tops Counts With 23 Left at Epic Poker League Main Event #2

Poker News / Short-Stacked Shamus / 08 September 2011 / Leave a Comment

After last month's inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event drew 137 entrants, just 97 entered the league's second $20,000 buy-in ME, and following two days of play the Frenchman Fabrice Soulier leads with 23 players left. Soulier's stack of 453,500 puts him just ahead of David Steicke (436,000). Meanwhile Erik Seidel, runner-up finisher to David "Chino" Rheem in the first EPL Main Event, is yet again at near the top of the counts in third (353,500).

The lower turnout for this second Main Event EPL event at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas was somewhat anticipated given the crowded poker tournament schedule at the start of September. A WSOP Circuit event in Louisiana, a UKIPT event in Dublin, and a WPT Paris event (from which our own Matthew Pitt is reporting) are some of the other choices on offer for the EPL-eligible players, as is PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker for which players must be outside the U.S. to play.

It was nonetheless an exciting Day 2 that saw the field trimmed from 50 down to 23 in the eight-handed no-limit hold'em event. Among the first eliminated on Wednesday were the red-hot Ben Lamb, David "ODB" Baker, Chau Giang, Greg Mueller, Justin Bonomo, and Mike Matusow.

They'd reached Level 8 (200/800/1,600) when a clash occurred between two of poker's most vocal trash-talkers, Phil Hellmuth and Allen Bari. After Bari had opened with a minimum-raise to 3,200, Hellmuth shoved all in for his last 33,000 from the button and Bari called. Hellmuth had Jc-Jh, but Bari had him dominated with Kc-Kd.

The board came Ks-Qh-3c-3s-7c, and Hellmuth was eliminated. As reported on the Epic Poker League live blog, Michael Binger chimed in with a comment from the neighboring table afterwards: "The best player in the world busted the best player in the world!"

Others failing to make it through the second day of play included Bryan Devonshire, Frank Kassela, Chris Klodnicki, Tom Dwan, and James Mackey.

It was Soulier who eliminated Mackey near night's end after his 9h-9s held up on a ten-high board versus Mackey's Ac-Jc. Others rising up through the counts with Soulier as play wound down included Nam Le and Matt Marafioti, both of whom secured places in the top five to start today's Day 3.

Jaime Kaplan began Day 2 as the chip leader, with Dan O'Brien close behind. Both would survive the day with average stacks, with Kaplan in ninth and O'Brien in 12th. EPL Main Event #1 winner Rheem remains with chips and will return to a below-average stack today, as will Bari, Jonathan Little, Christian Harder, Mike McDonald, and David "Bakes" Baker.

Today they play down to a final eight-handed table, with a winner decided on Friday. Only the top 12 spots pay, meaning the cash bubble will be bursting sometime today. Those eliminated in the money on Day 3 (ninth through 12th) will all be earning $46,020, but all will have their eyes on the $782,410 prize awaiting the winner.

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