Players are on their first break of the day in the €10K opening event here at 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT, and the landscape has changed considerably over the course of the first two hours.

Just five players remain at this point after early eliminations of Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Stephen Chidwick and Orpen Kisacikoglu.

Troyanovskiy shoved his last 10 big blinds in from the cutoff in an unraised pot, but Chidwick woke up with behind him and called. Troyanovskiy could only muster a dominated and brick-filled board left ace-high the winner.

Chidwick, however, would go to war with Ryan Riess and come out worse for the wear. Eventually, he three-bet a little under 20 big blinds from the button over Riess' cutoff open and then called off his last crumbs to the four-bet. Riess' was in great shape against and an ace-high flop signaled the end for the British crusher.

Kisacikoglu was left short after losing a couple of pots and shoved with in the small blind. It was only about five big blinds and Paul Newey, who has already won at least a couple of all-in pots for his tourney life, woke up with and called. Kisacikoglu flopped a gutter and two live cards he could pair but got no more help.

Where does all of that leave things? Riess now has a considerable chip lead with about 1.4 million of the 3.55 million in play. Here's how things stand after Rainer Kempe just doubled through Juan Pardo in a flip, eights over ace-nine:

They continue at 10,000/20,000/20,000.