Yorky Pud

The inaugural Epic Poker League (EL) Main Event has now reached the money as the 137 players who parted company with $20,000 have been whittled down to the final 18. Each of the surviving players is now guaranteed $43,190 but none of them will want to be taking home that amount, especially as there is now a $1,000,000 first place prize on offer.

At the start of Day 2 there were 63 runners and they voted to take $17,340 from the second place prize and add it to the winner's total so that the eventual champion takes home $1,000,000 and it is Britain's Sam Trickett who is the man on course for this massive cash prize as he ended the day with a massive stack of 1,032,000, almost 400,000 more chips than his nearest rival.

It has been quite a year for Trickett, who is currently ranked 30th in the Global Poker Index, and this latest cash means he will have won more than $3,000,000 from live tournaments during 2011! He started the year by winning the $100,000 High Roller event at the Aussie Millions for a cool $1,508,258 and followed that up with a second place finish in the $250,000 Super High Roller, a result that netted him another $1,384,631. In addition to those amazing results he has cashed in three more major events, including twice at the recent World Series of Poker.

Although Trickett has a huge chip lead going into Day 3 he also has by far the toughest of table draws. Whilst there are rarely going to be any easy tables in the Epic Poker League just by its very nature, when the players sit down at Table 3 in the Palms Resort Casino at 1200 noon Las Vegas time, it could quite possibly the the toughest six-handed table of all time. Keeping Trickett company are the currently in second place Hasan Habib (646,000), Erik Seidel (609,000), Jason Mercier (418,000), Eugene Katchlov (418,000) and Justin Bonomo (42,000). Wow! Dare anybody say that that particular table could make for some “epic” poker viewing?

It took 13 hours to reduce the 63-strong field down to the 18 money place, including a two-hour long bubble. Making the money in the EPL is vitally important as the top 27 money earners from the four Main Events are entered into a $1,000,000 freeroll at the end of the season, so it is not surprising that play was tighter than usual around the bubble, something Trickett took full advantage off. When Nam Le was eliminated in 20th place Trickett had 865,000 chips in his stack and by the time Matt Graham became the bubble boy two hours later the Brit had accumulated a further 300,000 chips!

Graham was eliminated in most unfortunate circumstances at the hands of David “Chino” Rheem, the man who finished seventh in the first-ever November Nine of the WSOP Main Event. The action had folded around to Graham in the small blind and he elected to just complete it, despite holding JhJs. Rheem looked down at KcJc and moved all in, Graham called off his remaining 142,500 chips and the dealer feverishly got to work putting the community cards out. The flop came down Ac-6h-4c giving Rheem outs to a club flush, and one such out appeared on the turn, the nine of clubs. This left Graham drawing completely dead and when the inconsequential 4d landed on the river the 18 surviving players had made it through to the money. Rheem had already pushed his luck during bubble play as he and Bonomo entered a raising war preflop that resulted in Rheem being all in and at risk of elimination. On that occasion Rheem held QcQh to Bonomo's pocket aces but the board ran out Kh-5h-3c-Qs-3h to cripple Bonomo and leave Rheem chipped up.

Play resumes at 1200 noon Las Vegas time and will continue until the final table of six is reached. At this point each of the players who are still sat behind piles of chips will be guaranteed to take home no less than $107,980 but will only be five eliminations away from winning $1,000,000 and an Epic Poker League title.