After the 12-level Day 1s, Day 2 was an overly different affair with just seven levels put onto the schedule. They were all an hour long to be fair (as opposed to 45 minutes), however it still meant for shorter day. It made those serious about tonight's player party, where the Spain vs Turkey game can also be shown on a large screen, very happy.

Apart from the shorter than usual Day 2, it was business as normal at the poker front. Plenty of players busted early, then a decelerate because the bubble needed to be swallowed, followed by another mass of players hitting the rail. There have been players that came back from fumes and people who turned towers into dust. Actually the bubble period was a bit of out of the ordinary, but more on that later.

Strong in pole position

First of all to the chip leader. Rodrigo Strong is having an excellent 2016 at PokerStars events world wide. Before securing a cash here today, he cashed the IPT, Eureka and most impressively the LAPT. We are saying most impressively as that money was a victory at LAPT Chile in March for $120k. He secured his place on the top of the counts (1,184,000) by winning a large pot within the last level. He moved all-in with jacks at the river of a 10 high board and was called by Darren Millar who held ace-ten.

He'll be chased on Day 3 by Nikola Ristivojevic (1,026,000), Marko Simic (1,002,000), Milos Skrbic (914,000), Albert Sapiano (911,000), Michael Ozimek (755,000), David Greene (692,000), Javier Zufia (684,000), Lucas Blanco (598,000), Janina Burger (403,000), Kjell Lindqvist (338,000), Miguel Riera (270,000), Kevin Monroe (265,000), James Mitchell (263,000), Yannis Liperis (193,000) and June Jenkins (154,000). A COMPLETE of 55 players made it through and you'll see the whole list by clicking here. And for the Day 3 seat draw click here.

Sapiano maintained his position near the highest of the counts

Nick O'Hara, the ground man in command of the principle Event on the time, boldly predicted that the bubble would last five hands at most. He was wrong, very wrong. It spanned a 90-minute period where around 15 all-in players found the way to double up and survive into the money. The primary player to not survive was Davide Ferrari, who was coolered in a hand versus Neil Raine. Both players had a the nut straight when the chips went in at the turn, however the Briton had a redraw to the nut flush and hit it at the river.

Ferrari ran out of gas on the wrong time

No regrets for Margets

Other players who busted before the money include: Ben Warrington, Kevin Whelan, Kully Sidhu, Mateusz Moolhuizen, Niko Koop, Seun Oluwole, and Asif Warris. Those hoping to have made Day 3, but happy to cash a minimum of include: Vicente Delgado (121st), Alain Roy (111th), Anh Tuan Hoang (95th), Leo Margets (90th), Renee Xie (89th), Diego Gomez (86th), Rasmus Agerskov (83rd) and Neil Raine (58th). Raine moved tables six times today and it was last table that cost him, going from 400,000 to out in barely over an hour, and shut to the top of the day. Payouts to this point (to be updated overnight) are available by clicking here.

Party or a facet event at the cards for Raine

The plan for tomorrow is to play (from midday CET) all the way down to a last table or ten levels, whichever comes first. Now it is time for all of the players (in addition to a couple of staff and media members) to get to the hotel poolside for drinks, finger food and football at the big screen. It is a tough life sometimes but Team PokerStars Blog will attend simply to bring you guys some updates tomorrow!

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT6 Marbella: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May and Rene Velli. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: UKIPT]