Owen leads the overall three tables

Day 2 of the UKIPT certainly lived as much as the "moving day" tagline today after the 273 returning players were whittled right down to just 24 over the process ten one-hour levels. Because the dust settled on a protracted day, one man stood taller than all others, well, if he stood on top of his big pile of chips he certainly would.

PokerStars qualifier Adam Owen in known for his prowess in draw variations of poker, but today he proved he isn't bad at reading boards either. He eliminated Casey Kastle at the last hand of the night after rivering an ace, and creating a flush some time earlier helped him knock out Bart Lybaert and Mathieu Kuhne in a single fell swoop. "I've never had a bag of chips this heavy!" he said on the close of play.

We're not surprised because it contained 2,171,000 and he leads from players corresponding to Mark Foggin (1,870,000), Patrick Rooney (1,776,000), Samuel Vousden (1,608,000), James Akenhead (579,000) and the one remaining UKIPT champion left within the field, Thomas Finneran (935,000). Full counts can also be seen by clicking here and take a look at the Day 3 seat draw as well.

Can Finneran join the double club?

Day 2 may be always the bubble day at the UKIPT and today was no different. It's one of the emotional junctions of a poker tournament, but similar to an excellent holiday coming to an end, it has to happen. The bubble actually burst without anyone realising on the time. How can that happen, you ask? Well, Idris Ambraisse and Pim Gieles both busted mutually during hand-for-hand play - splitting 151st place money - meaning that the player who was eliminated in 153rd place was the last to go away and not using a money. That player was David Crilly and he had called all in for 2 big blinds whilst within the big blind. He found himself dominated and didn't have the option out.

Crilly became the bubble boy after the double exit

He was not alone in leaving with none money today, as another 120 players had dreams of cashing dashed early on. Among them were Jonathan Rees, Nick Newport, Fernando Britto, Kerryjane Craigie, Rocco Palumbo, Matt Davenport, Daragh Davey, Jason Tompkins, Georgios Mavroulias, Simon Persson, Gareth Chantler and Friend of PokerStars Filipe Ramos.

No back-to-back for Kileen

One player who made the money but not the tip of the day was defending champion Kevin Killeen. He busted in 33rd place over the past level of the night when his short-stack shove with ten-nine didn't figure out well versus Paul Michaelis and his pocket sevens. Other notables who also cashed but did not make Day 3 included fellow former champions Dean Hutchison (66th and Brett Angell (67th); Dan Carter (50th), Patrick Leonard (51st), David Clarkson (53rd), Andrew Chen (63rd), Dara O'Kearney (75th), Joel Micka (84th), Dermot Blain (87th), Charlie Carrel (88th), Chris Gordon (90th), Jeff Madsen (101st), Chris Dowling (108th), Joao Simao (132nd) and Kenny Hallaert (137th).

Hutchison busted within the money

The Main Event has two more days to play but they'll be a one-day hiatus in between. The plan for tomorrow is to minimize to a last table of eight players after which take a one-day break before coming back to play to a winner on Monday. Those eight lucky souls gets their QUARTER-HOUR of fame because the final may be live streamed on EPTLive.com.

Want to begin your individual UKIPT campaign? Join PokerStars and begin your journey. Click here to get an account.

That's all in favour of today folks, play will resume at midday tomorrow. For now, compensate for today's action by clicking the links below:

Levels 19-22Levels 13-18

24 players are still at the road to success

All photos are copyright of Mickey May

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