Day 2 of the MILLIONS Open brought out a field of 392 players, each with their sights set on the $210,000 first-place prize. But there remained a long way to go before reaching that ultimate goal, as they had to make it through 12 levels of action today before even having a chance at the big money. The top 143 finishers in this event made it to the prizes, and that was the focus for many players this afternoon- making it past the money bubble.

There was a frenetic pace to the early levels – players were taking risks to run up their stacks and that led to a steady stream of bustouts that quickly brought the field down to less than 200 players. At that point, the tournament staff balanced the tables accordingly and a large part of the day was played 8-handed. This slight change in format meant that everyone saw more hands and the blinds moved around the table a bit faster, helping induce action and increase the pressure. The later stages of today’s action also saw the introduction of the automatic clock, which helped move things along at a steady pace and prevented anyone from sandbagging and slowing down the pace of play. The pressure mounted until the field finally reached the money bubble when 144 players remained. The hand-for-hand play put the brakes on the action, but it passed after roughly 30 minutes and opened the floodgates thereafter. There were a number of short stacks in the field, each trying to wait out the others, and once the minimum payout of $2,700 was guaranteed, they were happy to take their chances with the first strong hand that came their way. Unsurprisingly, this took care of nearly a quarter of the remaining players in short order.

When the dust settled at the end of level 24, there were 66 players remaining. Anthony Ruberto emerged as the chip leader at the end of the day with 40,175,000 in chips ready for tomorrow. But there are 10 other players with stacks above 30,000,000, including notable players like Martin Jacobson and Sebastien Drolet-Poitras, so his lead is far from insurmountable.

Day 3 start tomorrow at noon and will play until there is a winner.

This post was published first on this Playground Event Blog: MILLIONS North America 2018.