Baltic Festival: "A MINIMUM OF" an excessively long day two

As poker tournament reporters around the world, we grow frightened of one of the vital most innocuous words. This morning, for instance, our tournament director Teresa Nousiainen told dealers and players that we were to play "no less than eight levels" and people two words "no less than" sent shivers down the spines of the small media posse here in Tallinn.

We will need to have seen it coming. From the starting field of 307 players, 121 made it through their day one. By tomorrow night we're going to should have lost 120 of them, so we've numerous hacking and slaying to do.

Tournament director Teresa Nousiainen

We're going to wish every moment of that "no less than" eight levels, and doubtless "a minimum of" another eight levels tomorrow. It'll be engaging stuff because the most populous tournament ever hosted within the Baltics reaches its business end. But it is also going to be a feat of endurance all round.

The money bubble will burst once we hit 32, and you may see the entire prize structure at the payout structure page. You must also spend one click the chip count page, where you will see the best way the sphere shapes up.

Top of the tree is the day 1a leader, Bo Erichsen, who knocked out Shaun Deeb with the latest hand he played. Then there's the Estonian duo of Ermo Kosk and Aleksandr Lozkin. Lurking behind them are the Team PokerStars Pros JC Alvarado (58,000), Peter Eastgate (36,700) and Katja Thater (26,600), all of whom have the pedigree to head creeping up that leaderboard.

We'll be going level-by-level on our coverage today: more hands, less chatter. That's surely for the best.

Stay tuned. It'll be a protracted one.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Baltic Poker Festival]