October 06 2011, Donnie Peters

Day 2 of the 2011 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour London Poker Festival £20,000 High Roller wrapped up on Thursday. The event is down to the final eight players who are all in the money. Leading the way is Igor Kurganov with 854,000 in chips. He has a sizable lead over Robert Akery, who sits in second place with 622,000.

To start the day, 30 players remained from the original starting field of 75. Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem, Jonathan Duhamel and Eugene Katahclov all made it to Day 2 but failed to advance to the final.

According to the PokerStars Blog, Hachem was sent to the rail by Michael Tureniec. Hachem’s pocket twos failed to win the flip against Tureniec’s . Duhamel was sent off by Adrian Bussman and Katchalov was dished to the sidelines by Andrey Bondar.

On Katchalov’s final hand, Bondar bet 20,000 with the board reading . Katchalov moved all-in and Bondar made the call holding for a turned two pair. Katchalov held but the river didn’t help and he was eliminated.

Sam Stein held the lead when Day 2 began. He took a hit early on after doubling up Byron Kaverman. The money went in on a flop with Kaverman holding to Stein’s . The turn brought the and the river the to give Kaverman the winning flush.

On his final hand, Stein moved all-in against Olivier Busquet on an flop. Busquet made the call with for second pair against Stein who was holding . The turn and river allowed Busquet to win the hand and send Stein out the door.

Other notable eliminations during Day 2 included Isaac Haxton, Anton Ionel, Mike Watson, McLean Karr, Mike McDonald, Phil Collins and James Bord. Collins was bounced in 11th place by Kurganov and then Kaverman went out in 10th. From there, there was a save made for the player finishing in ninth position. The payouts were adjusted so that ninth place could collect £25,000, making Kaverman (10th) the official bubble boy. Bord fell in ninth place to officially set the final table.

Final Table Chip Counts

If you recognize the names of a few of these high rollers from previous events, it’s because many have had plenty of success in big buy-in events on the EPT. The chip leader, Kurganov, placed second in last season’s EPT Grand Final “10,000 High Roller Turbo and third in this season’s EPT Tallinn “10,000 High Roller. Akery placed 13th in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller. Bussman came eighth in the EPT Deauville “10,000 High Roller last season. Busquet was second in the EPT Grand Final “25,000 High Roller in 2010. Philipp Gruissem won the EPT Barcelona “10,000 High Roller at the last stop on tour and Tureniec won last season’s EPT Copenhagen Main Event.

The third and final day of play kicks off at 1200 BST (0400 PDT) on Thursday. Because of the ninth-place save, first place has been adjusted to £511,300. That’s still a heck of a lot of money and PokerNews will have the recap after play is complete.

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September 10 2011, Crystal Quibell

The second Epic Poker League Main Event has ended with Mike “Timex” McDonald coming out on top of the 97-player field to win the $782,410 first-place prize and coveted champion’s ring.

When play began at the eight-handed final table, there was no shortage of talented players. Along with McDonald were Erik Seidel, Dutch Boyd, Fabrice Soulier, David Steicke, Sean Getzwiller, Isaac Baron and Nam Le. McDonald had quite a task in defeating the other seven players, but he proved he was up to the challenge.

The first four eliminations of the day happened relatively quickly. Boyd was the first player to go when his pocket jacks ran into Seidel’s pocket aces. The next player eliminated was Getzwiller. His performance was particularly impressive because he has now participated in both EPL Main Events having won his seats via the Pro/Am Qualifiers. As a result of his final table appearance on Friday, Getzwiller now has a temporary EPL card that will allow him to buy in directly to the next EPL event.

The next two players to be eliminated were Baron and Le. Le’s elimination came on the 46th hand of the day, and that’s when things slowed down quite a bit. Although a number of large hands took place, another player was not eliminated for over five hours. That player happened to be Seidel.

Seidel had a very up and down day, at times being the chip leader and at others ending up as the short stack. Seidel finished second in the inaugural EPL Main Event and has clearly made himself a force to be reckoned with, with this fourth-place finish.

Soulier was very aggressive during the lengthy three-handed play, shoving all-in preflop at least a dozen times without being called. McDonald eventually looked him up with Soulier’s trailing McDonald’s . The board brought no help to Soulier, who headed to the rail.

Heads-up play only lasted 23 hands. Even though their stacks were similar in size for the first part of heads-up play, the turning point came when they got all the chips in the middle in a classic coin-flip situation. McDonald was the one at risk holding against Steicke’s . The board gave McDonald quite a sweat as it ran out . After the hand, Steicke was left with only 230,000.

Steicke was hot on the comeback trail though and doubled up two times, once when his out-drew McDonald’s and then again when his held against McDonald’s . Those two doubles put Steicke back over the one-million mark.

Steicke’s comeback run ended when he moved all-in preflop with and ran into McDonald’s . The board ran out and Steicke was eliminated in second place, making McDonald the winner! Twenty-one-year-old Mike McDonald became the second EPL Champion, winning the Champion’s Ring along with $782,410.

Final Table Results

The next event on the EPL schedule takes place in December. The $1,500 Pro/Am event takes place December 9 through 12 and the $20,000 Main Event takes place December 14 through 18. PokerNews will be there providing live coverage of the event, so be sure to tune in then.

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*Photo courtesy of Epic Poker