The EPT Monte Carlo is among the most exciting festivals on the poker calendar. This year the excitement is doubled as the festival is making its comeback under the EPT brand after a two-year hiatus.
And the highest buy-in event on what is currently officially running as the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo Casino EPT is under way at the host venue. The €100,000 Super High Roller has always drawn poker’s finest talent and this year makes no difference.
Day 2 of the major event was played on Friday. It started off with 24 players, including Orpen Kisacikoglu and Daniel Dvoress who re-bought into the tournament shortly before the beginning of the second day of play. This year’s EPT Monte Carlo Super High Roller attracted a field of 46 entries, including 16 re-entries, to create a prize pool of €4,462,920. The top six places are paid, min-cash is worth €313,000. Aside from the very prestigious title of a Super High Roller victor, the winner will also receive a first-place prize of €1,520,000.
It was a rather short day at the host casino on Friday. Half of the 24 players who entered Day 2 of the Super High Roller were eliminated within the first four hours of action. Play lasted until the final six players were determined. Mikita Badziakouski, who bagged the largest stack into Day 2 and thrived for a big part of the day, eventually became the unfortunate bubble boy. He was knocked out in seventh place by German poker pro Christoph Vogelsang. The latter thus cemented his position as the overnight chip leader.
Aiming for Another Big Title
Vogelsang has recorded more than $15 million in live tournament earnings since October 2013, when he cashed for the first time in a live tournament event. Last year, the young German took down the highly competitive field of the $300,000 Aria Super High Roller Bowl for a first-place prize of $6 million. It is also important to note that back in 2014, he finished third in the $1,000,000 Big One for ONE DROP, leaving it to Dan Colman and Daniel Negreanu to square off for the title. Vogelsang collected $4,480,001 for his deep run in that event.
The player now has the chance to win big on European soil. Vogelsang ran quite well during Day 2 of the Super High Roller. The player emerged as the chip leader at some point in play to become the first to crack the 2 million mark. He then lost some of his momentum to regain it towards the end of the day and become the first and only player to crack the 3 million mark.
Vogelsang is thus leading the pack of six Super High Roller finalists into the final day of play with a stack of 3.02 million, well ahead of Sam Greenwood, who bagged the second largest stack last night (2.065 million) and Isaac Haxton (1.68 million), who rounded out the top three stacks.
Ali Reza Fatehi (1.84 million), Ole Schemion (1.49 million), and Justin Bonomo (1.405 million) are the other three players who are still in contention for the title and the first-place prize. It is important to note that Schemion and Bonomo are former EPT Monte Carlo Super High Roller winners.
Schemion won his title in 2016 for €1,597,800, while Bonomo became a Super High Roller champion back in 2012 for €1,640,000.
Super High Roller Action is set to resume at the host venue today at noon local time. The remaining contenders will play down to a champion.
