February 22 2011, Dana Immanuel

The light snow drifting down over Copenhagen on Day 1a turned into a blizzard on Day 1b, making staying within the confines of the Radisson Blu hotel just that little bit more enticing. And it was a good thing, too, as 235 players either satellited, bought or begged their way into the second start day of the 2011 PokerStars European Poker Tour Copenhagen, bringing the total number of runners up to 449 — well up from last year’s 423. The field generated an impressive-sounding DKK 15,086,400 (around €2,023,500), of which DKK 3,700,000 (around €496,270) will go to the winner.

The “Scandie Open,” as it’s affectionately known, has a reputation for attracting one of the toughest fields in Europe, and this year’s tournament has not disappointed in that respect. Among the better-known faces to grace the tournament room at the start of the day were Jake Cody, Juha Helppi, both Thorson brothers and a very respectable smattering of Team PokerStars Pros including Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Vadim Markushevski, Florian Langmann, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Toni Judet, John Duthie and JP Kelly.

Viktor Blom began the day well with pocket tens making a straight to crack another player’s aces and put the Blom stack well above the average. But around halfway through the day, Blom’s stack began moving in the wrong direction, and he was at less than his starting stack when he got the whole lot in with on a flop against Ramzi Jelassi’s . The turn and river blanked, and Blom hit the rail. A by-product of Blom’s misfortune was to propel Jelassi up the leaderboard where he remained for the rest of the day, finishing up on 169,200, in third place overall.

Other players who failed to make it through the day included EPT Prague champion Roberto Romanello, two-time EPT Copenhagen finalist Rasmus Nielsen, William Thorson, Sebastian Ruthenberg and EPT Vilamoura winner Toby Lewis.

On the other hand, those still in with a shot at those tasty DKK 3.7 million first prizes include Kelly, Duthie, Cody, Jonathan Weekes, David Vamplew and Michael Tureniec.

The chip lead changed hands several times throughout the day. Online qualifier Michael Aron and Vojtech Ruzicka took turns for a while, but the biggest stack in the room at the bagging and tagging was Lithuanian Domantas Klimciauskas. Klimciauskas, whose best live result to date was fifth place in the €2,000 side event at the recent EPT Prague, goes into Day 2 with 203,800, making him the overall chip leader. Michael Aron seems to be in second place on 191,000 and Ramzi Jelassi in third. The biggest stack from Day 1a was that of Mark Hirleman, who finished up with 163,400.

The remaining 262 players from the combined Day 1s will reconvene Wednesday at noon local time in an effort to whittle themselves down to a more manageable number. We’ll be with them the whole time, documenting their progression toward the money, at PokerNews.com, so join us then.

Follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.

March 22 2011, Chris Hall

Day 2 of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Snowfest began with 268 players out of the initial 482 who entered. By the end of the day, the field was cut to 81 players, nine places away from being in the money.

Phillip Meulyzer finished the day with the chip lead, bagging 623,500 in chips. Meulyzer overtook the top spot on the chip leaderboard largely in part to a hand he played against Markus Golser. The two had been sparring throughout the opening levels of Day 2 and it all came to a head, on a board reading . Golser moved all in over Meulyzer’s check-raise. Meulyzer called instantly and tabled for the nut flush, leaving Golser and his pocket queens drawing dead. The river was the and Golser was eliminated, while Meulyzer took over the chip lead.

Eight former EPT champions made Day 2. Of the eight, Kevin Stani, Kevin MacPhee, Liv Boeree, Salvatore Bonavena, Anton Wigg, and Max Lykov all made swift exits early in the day. EPT Copenhagen winner, Michael Tureniec continued his ascent of the chip leaderboard. He spent much of the early half of the day battling and playing several large pots against Yann Dion. Tureniec finally prevailed when his queens won a classic coin flip against Dion’s ace-king. That win put Tureniec among the chip leaders, but by the end of the day, he had fallen a bit, and goes into Day 3 in the twelfth spot on the chip leaderboard.

The only other former EPT winner left in the field, Sebastian Ruthenberg, also managed to make it through to Day 3, but with a much shorter stack than Tureniec. Other notables to make it through Day 2 include Cristian Dragomir, James Keys, Martins Adeniya, Vladimir Geshkenbein, and last year’s Snowfest runner-up, Russell Carson.

Team PokerStars is still well represented going into Day 3 with Team SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo, and Team Pros Alex Kravchenko and Luca Pagano all bagging chips at the end of Day 2.

Day 3 resumes at 2:00 p.m. local time on Wednesday, and will end when 24 players remain. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there covering all the action, so keep it locked to the Live Reporting Page for more.

Below is Laura Cornelius with an update from the start of Day 2.

If you’re not following us on Twitter, you should be. So click here to follow PokerNews.