A massive 895-player field was cut to under 200 on Day 2 at the EPT Main Event in Malta today with Canadian Sam Chartier snagging the chip lead.

With another seven entries trickling in at the beginning of the day before registration closed a towering €4,340,750 prize pool has accumulated that will pay the top 121 places. An impressive €810,400 now awaits the winner of the first-ever EPT Malta main event and Chartier has the advantage with 465,500 chips heading for Day 3. Plenty of challengers sit in the rearview though including British superstar Sam Trickett, Romanian crusher Ignat Liviu and 2014 Spirit of Poker award winner Dominik Panka.

Good Poker Week for Poland

With fellow Pole Dzmitry Urbanovich planting the flag atop three individual tournaments this week Poland was already taking home €719,905 before the Main Event even started. Panka, who was a special guest at the 2014 Battle of Malta where he received the Rising Star award, hopes to continue his country’s success with another deep run of his own. The 2014 PCA Main Event champ bagged up 197,300 to put him firmly up in the top 35. Also bagging up significant stacks heading to Day 3 were Sam Trickett (345,000), Sergio Aido (272,500), Ignat Liviu 248,000) and Fedor Holz (199,700).

The current Top 10 and chip counts:

• 1 Sam Chartier 465,500
• 2 Moritz Dietrich 460,000
• 3 Ismail Kalkan 426,900
• 4 Javier Rodriguez 415,000
• 5 Filippo Lazzaretto 348,100
• 6 Sam Trickett 345,000
• 7 Nandor Solyom 335,700
• 8 Francois Billard 320,000
• 9 Koray Aldemir 312,100
• 10 Jean Montury 300,000

Check the video replay for all of the feature-table action and tune in tomorrow at 12 CET for action from Day 3.

One Orbit, One Champion

Speaking of Dominik Panka, winner of the PCA and the EPT Deauville High Roller 2014, we spent an orbit watching his table today to see just how a champion spends his time. At his table were also Marc André Ladouceur and Olivier Busquet, members of Team Canada and Team USA, respectively, at the just completed Global Poker Masters. In this orbit it’s Level 11 and the blinds are 600/1200/200. Panka holds about 140k, almost twice the average of 76,500. There are 351 players left.

Hand 1) Panka is in the small blind and folds to a raise from early position.

Hand 2) On the button Panka sees another raise from early position and a call from the Hijack. He lets his hand go.

Hand 3) In the Cut-off, Panka calls a raise to 3,000 from the Hijack. Nobody else calls. The flop is      

The hijack checks, Panka bets 4,000 and wins the pot.

Hand 4) In the Hijack Panka folds to an early raise.

Hand 5) In MP2, a player from UTG moves all-in. Panka folds.

Hand 6) Sitting in MP1 Panka raises to 2,600. There’s a re-raise from the Hijack and Panka gives up his hand.

Hand 7+8) UTG+1; Panka folds.

Hand 9) Panka sits in the big blind. There is a raise from the Cut-off and the SB moves all-in. Fold.

Panka played two hands in this orbit, of which he won one and lost the other. In both cases he didn’t have to go to showdown. In the hand he won it looks like the original raiser didn’t hit the flop and would have given up to any bet, especially coming from a high-class player like Panka. When Panka raise-folds in Hand 6 the re-raise came from a player with a relatively short stack and a relatively tight image. Obviously Panka put him on a small, very strong range for a re-raise and didn’t want to carry on without position.

Panka won 200 chips in this orbit so his stack stayed virtually the same. He was obviously getting a lot of respect and read his opponents well. With Panka, Ladouceur and Busquet at the table there wasn’t much action, particularly as these three didn’t play a single hand against each other.

Decision of the Day

From today at the EPT Malta main event. A new hand is dealt. There’s a raise and a 3-bet and everybody else folds. The original raiser 4-bets and his opponent announces “call.” The dealer hears “fold” and throws the deck into the muck. Both players still have their cards and they tell the dealer they are still playing.

At this point the dealer called the floorman. We asked floorman staff Yalcin for his decision in this situation. “If the deck can still be reconstructed, the hand will be played on. If the deck can’t be recovered the hand is dead, meaning that all cards go into the muck and the chips in the pot are split evenly. This is purely a human error and it can happen to everyone. The players will not like it but they’ll have to deal with it.”