Day 2 Ends with 79 Players; Antonio Buonanno Leads w/428,000

Day 2 at the party poker World Poker Tour Merit Classic North Cyprus has ended with less than 80 players advancing from a record-breaking Cyprus Main Event field of 404 players.

The chip leader at the end of play tonight is Antonio Buonanno with 428,000. Other top stacks belong to Dimitri Kataev (377,000), Seref Anar (335,000), Oliver Price (318,000), Nicolas Chouity (316,500), Christian Christner (312,000), Alexander Lakhov (309,500) and Andrii Nadieliaiev (306,500).

Other notables that have made it through to Day 3 include Toby Lewis (298,000), Sam Trickett (241,000), Sofia Lovgren (126,000) and last year’s runner-up Albert Daher (261,500). Champions Club members Andrey Pateychuk (69,500) and Dmitry Gromov (59,000) also made it through the day.

Click here for the Day 3 seat draw.

Whatever happens from this point onwards we will have a new champion as Alexey Rybin ran ace-three into pocket aces to hit the rail early, and fellow Champions Club members Dominik Nitsche and James Dempsey followed him. Ilan Boujenah, Manig Loeser, Luca Moschitta and Mickey Petersen also failing to make the grade.

The remaining field will return at 13:00 (local time) Monday, and we expect to go deep into the money. 45 players are guaranteed a minimum of $8,500 and the winner will walk away with $310,000 and a seat in the World Poker Tour World Championships in Atlantic City.

So make sure you join the WPT Live Updates team as we bring you all the action in live updates, chip counts and photos from sunny Cyprus.