Ryan Riess raised to 12,000 from the under-the-gun position with . Julian Stuer called with from mid-position. Mikhail Surin found in the small blind and called.
The flop came , Surin checked, Riess shoved for 1,700, Stuer called and Surin called too.
The turn brought them the , both Surin and Stuer checked.
The river completed the board with the , Surin checked and so did Stuer. Surin won with a pair of threes and eliminated Riess from the main event.
Alexander Lakhov nearly nabbed a bracelet, the last domestic one of the year, when he got second in this year's World Series of Poker Global Casino Championship. Unfortunately for the accomplished Russian, he fell heads-up to Sean Yu and had to settle for a payout of $183,527. Despite more than $3.2 million in cashes, Lakhov has yet to claim his first piece of WSOP gold.
It seems he's flown back across the pond hungrier than ever to finish what he came so close to accomplishing. At the close of Day 2 of the 2017 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, Lakhov bagged 424,000, putting him squarely in the top five.
Despite his hefty count though, Lakhov still trails overall chipleader Vishal Maini. The British player finished with a monstrous 651,500 at the close of the six levels of Day 2 play. He's got a few cashes totalling a little over $73,000, so the first-place prize of €1,115,207 here would represent quite the windfall for him.
With the close of registration at the start of play — and the customary last-minute entries of numerous high rollers, from the likes of Phil Hellmuth to a gaggle of German crushers — the prize pool was finalized early in the day. The aforementioned payout is of greatest interest of course, but it's also notable that the tournament did manage to inch past the €5 million guarantee with 529 entries, creating a total prize pool of €5,025,500.
Some of the players still in contention for the €1.1 million include bracelet winners Mike Leah, Kristen Bicknell, David Peters, Niall Farrell and Anthony Zinno, as well as defending champ Kevin MacPhee. Team 888poker is also well-represented with Vivian Saliba, Natalie Hof, Parker Talbot and High Roller for One Drop winner Dominik Nitsche making it through.
Former Main Event champ Ryan Riess, tabbed as a player to watch coming as he closes out a smoking-hot 2017, fell near the end of play. He lost most of his stack in a huge flip with jacks against the ace-king of Julian Stuer about an hour before players bagged up.
Others going bust included the aforementioned Hellmuth, as well as Adrian Mateos, Chris Moorman, Nick Petrangelo and John Racener. The elimination of the latter meant Chris Ferguson became the WSOP Player of the Year.
Day 3 play kicks off at noon on Tuesday with blinds at 1,500/3,000 and a running ante of 500, so come back to PokerNews as the tournament marches toward the money bubble.