October 23 2011, Eric Ramsey

Day 2 of the PokerStars.it European Poker Tour San Remo saw 482 of the original 879 starters return to the Casino di San Remo to try and accumulate a formidable chip stack. The early pace of play was absolutely torrid, and astonishingly, the field nearly reached the money over the course of seven furious levels. More than 300 players were eliminated, just sixteen shy of bursting the bubble. When the bags came out around one o’clock in the morning, Joseph Cheong sat atop the field, thanks to a late surge. He bagged up a whopping 632,000 enough to give him more than 150 big blinds to return to on Day 3.

You’ll know Joseph Cheong best for his place among the 2010 WSOP November Nine, where he finished in third place for more than $4 million. That’s not too shabby, but Cheong is also somewhat familiar with success on the European Poker Tour trail. In Season 7, he finished runner-up to McLean Karr in the £10,000 Turbo High Roller event at EPT London, adding another quarter-million dollars to his bankroll. He has still yet to cash in an EPT Main Event, but that streak is a near-lock to come to an end on Monday in Italy.

Cheong began Day 2 with an above-average stack of 70,000, but Nick Yunis took more than half of those chips during the first level when his turned a flush. A couple of hours later, Cheong was all the way up over 300,000. He and Anatoli Ozhenilok went back and forth for a while, then Cheong was moved to a table that included Shaun Deeb and a few amateur Italians. That’s when he went to work.

During the last level of the night, he broke through the roof when he picked up aces in a huge three-way pot. In an odd spot, Deeb made a squeeze of a four-bet behind Piero Guido’s shove and a Cheong flat-call. But Cheong reraised all-in, and Deeb was forced to abandon his hand and surrender about a third of his chips that were already in the pot. Deeb managed to dodge Cheong’s aces, but Guido and his went broke, and Cheong won a follow-up pot with pocket queens to vault to the top with 650,000 chips.

As the day wore on, the cream really began to rise to the top of the field. While Cheong was busy taking the chip lead, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst was pounding her tough table that included Salman Behbehani and Kevin MacPhee. She had an above-average stack all day long, but she got a big boost during the closing minutes of the day, just as Cheong did.

Behbehani was on the bad end of that clash, and Selbst played the hand like a boss, to be frank. The two of them had been attacking each others’ raises unrelentingly, and this pot was four-bet by Behbehani before the flop. Selbst called, and she called another bet on the flop before things got really serious. On the turn, Behbehani check-shoved with , but Selbst had turned the joint with her unlikely . Behbehani couldn’t pair the board to stay alive, and Selbst doubled up over 400,000. She finished with 497,000 to end the day near the top of the pack heading down the stretch run.

Other notables who found themselves flush with chips include Daniel Neilson (584,500), Mustapha Kanit (577,000), William Thorson (508,500), Sergey Tikhonov (504,500), and start-of-day big stacks Nick Yunis (435,500) and Chris McClung (402,000).

World Series of Poker Europe Main Event champion Elio Fox just missed the overnight top ten, bagging up 346,000 to get well within striking distance in 11th place. He’s on a heater right now on this European vacation, a poker phenomenon that is not to be underestimated. From the Team PokerStars Pros, Lex Veldhuis (341,000), Johnny Lodden (287,000), and the EPT’s founder, John Duthie (147,500) are also still in the hunt.

The 144 who have made Day 3 will return to play on Monday at 1400 CET (0500 PDT). Sixteen will fall without a payday, and the final 128 will all be in the money and onto the next stage of this event – the push to the final table.

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October 07 2011, Donnie Peters

At the previous stop on Season 8 of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour, Phillip Gruissem defeated a field of 58 to take down the “10,000 High Roller event for “234,500. In that event, he defeated a final table that included Sami Kelopuro, Steve O’Dwyer and Team PokerStars Pro Leo Fernandez. After Thursday’s finale in the EPT London £20,000 High Roller, Gruissem is right back in the winner’s circle after defeating Igor Kurganov heads up.

At the start of the day, Gruissem sat seventh in chips out of the final eight players. He was only ahead of Michael Tureniec from Sweden, but that didn’t seem to stop him. After Tureniec busted on the first hand of play, Gruissem went chip hunting and was able to chip up a little bit through Rob Akery.

Shortly after that, Sam Trickett went out in seventh place at the hands of Kurganov, who increased his chip lead with the elimination. Then, just before the blinds went up, Gruissem busted Joel Nordkvist in sixth place.

According to the PokerStars Blog, Nordkvist raised to 20,000 with the blinds at 5,000/10,000 with a 1,000 ante. Gruissem reraised to 48,000 and then Nordkvist announced that he was all-in. Gruissem called holding and was up against Nordkvist’s . The flop, turn and river ran out and Nordkvist was eliminated.

Gruissem also eliminated Adrian Bussman in fifth place. With the final board reading , Bussman bet 96,000. Gruissem took some time and then raised all-in, putting Bussman to the test. After a minute or two in the tank, Bussman made the call with the for trip fives. He was outdone by Gruissem’s for a full house and eliminated.

The players had struck a deal when four-handed play began and the details were as follows.

They made sure to leave some money on the table to play for, which was as follows.

From there, Olivier Busquet went out in fourth place and Akery in third. With the heads-up battle set between Gruissem and Kurganov, it was Kurganov who held the lead with approximately 2.4 million in chips to 1.35 million. Gruissem fought back to take the lead and pull ahead of his competitor before the final hand came up.

Kurganov moved all-in from the button with the on the short stack. Gruissem made the call from the big blind holding the . Although Kurganov flopped a six to give him a pair, his hand was no good on the final board of and he was eliminated in second place.

Final Table Payouts

This high-roller win is the second for Gruissem within about a month to continue the great success he’s had in 2011. Back in April, Gruissem took third in the EPT Berlin “10,000 High Roller for “67,000. During the summer, he had a very deep run in the World Series of Poker Main Event and finished in 28th place for $242,636.

The next stop on Season 8 of the PokerStars.com EPT will be Loutraki, Greece in November. The Main Event takes place Nov. 15 through 20, 2011 and PokerNews will be on hand to provide live coverage. For more information about the event, check out the tournament’s page.

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Follow Donnie Peters on Twitter – @Donnie_Peters