From an initial 1,432 down to 399 and now just 47 players are left heading into Day 3 of the Eureka Poker Tour event here in Vienna. Each of the remaining players are now guaranteed a minimum payout of €4,000 but all eyes will be on the first place prize of €244,270 - the biggest Eureka has ever offered.
If you'd looked at the chip counts going into Day 2 and scrolled down, down, down - all the way to the bottom you'd have found the name of Sangkhadech Fremming who began the day with just 9,800, less than half his original starting stack. He was starting the day with just over six big blinds, I doubt anyone, even himself, would've believed that at the end of the day, he was going to be the chip leader with 1,509,000. Indeed when it was pointed out that he was leading overall, Fremming's face was first one of shock, which was then a genuine smile of pride.
Fremming was more than happy to tell us about his early hands that set him on the way which included eliminating Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.
"I was down to 7,500 early on and pushed with queen-ten in the blinds and doubled up when I made a straight. The next hand I was all in against 'ElkY" with [Kh][Jh] against [As][7s] blind-on-blind, he flopped an ace and I made a flush on the river.
The third time I was in for my tournament life was the most important. 'ElkY' had pushed with pocket threes, another guy was in with kings, a third player had jacks and I had aces! On top of that I flopped an ace and won a 200,000 pot at the 1,000/2,000 level."
Elsewhere Zimnan Ziyard had a day that would be best likened to a gif of a yo-yo. Ziyard had hit the heights of 1.2 million but had to be content with finishing with 540,000. He mentioned glumly, "I lost a pot with aces to kings for 1.2 million..."
Ilya Gorodetskiy (608,000) admitted his day had been tough, "It was a grind but I managed to win three coinflips for my tournament life. The thing is I haven't cashed in a tournament since 2012, I don't play that many but it's still more than 30 events!"
Gorodetskiy has other problems as well, he's a regular on PokerStars.tv doing the Russian commentary. "I'm meant to be commentating on this final table, but we'll see how it works out!"
Other players through to Day 3 are David Kaufmann (1,043,000), Tudor Purice (867,000), Benjamin Pollak (663,000) and Max Pescatori (488,000).
Meanwhile most of the big names fell even before Sasa Lalos bubbled the tournament in 216th position. Like Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, both Marcel Luske and Max Lykov were early casualties on Day 2. Team Online's Mickey Petersen lasted a little longer but still couldn't make it into the money.
Even those who did make the money did not seem last much longer, Bodo Sbrzesny, Dimitri Holdeew, Rocco Palumbo, Kevin Iacofano, Pius Heinz, Chris Oliver and Nicolas Cardyn were among the 168 players who have already cashed in this event.
On Day 3, the remaining players will play down to the final table of eight. In the meantime, to read the reports of how the bubble went down and what happened after click here and here. Tomorrow's seat draw is here and a full list of payouts so far is here.