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EPT San Remo Day 2 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2009-04-21 17:44
Out of the 469 initial starters who bellied up to the tables at the EPT’s San Remo stop on Day 1a and Day 1b, only 124 returned for Day 2 action. Dragan Galic of Croatia started Day 2 in the chip lead, and he literally had to beat chips off with a stick all through the day as they seemed freakishly attracted to him for some reason. Sure enough, he finished the day with an even bigger chip lead than he’d started it with and never relinquished the lead for a second.
While Dragic got off to a flying start, Lady Luck wasn’t that generous with some of the name pros. Jason Mercier, last year’s EPT San Remo champion, started the day on a short-stack. A few moments into the action, he shoved all in with A,7 in response to an opponents’ shove. The opponent tabled A,8 and Mercier never managed to catch up. Marcel Luske, Liam Flood and David Saab soon followed him to the rail, as Isabelle Mercier and Katja Thater were also forced to vacate their seats.
Galic was unstoppable all along as he sent one player after another to the rail. He eliminated 2 guys in a single shove on a hand on which his K,K held up against the other guys’ A,8 and A,Q. In another hand, his pocket 9s defeated an opponent’s K,Q. The K,Q overtook his pocket 9s on the flop, but the turn gave him another 9 to add yet another scalp to his already formidable collection.
Late in the day, an interesting exchange of hands took place between Galic and Emanuele Rugini. Rugini managed to achieve what no one else had during Day 2. He actually lifted some chips off Galic, doubling up. On the very next hand though, the two of them got it all-in again, and Galic promptly exacted revenge, sending Rugini to the rail.
That win gave Galic’s already huge stack another boost, and took him past the 500k mark. At the end of the day, the remaining survivors had pretty much closed in on the money bubble, which means it’ll only take a few eliminations for the bubble to burst on Day 3
