Spanish lead the way at PokerStars RPS Riga

by James White
After eight hours of play today the field of 110 players who started Day 2 was cut to just 36. They now move forward to Day 3 and a have real shot at cashing here at the Russian Poker Series in Riga.

Miguel Candeias, from Spain, began the day with 81,325 chips and continued his surge through today's play and finished as chip leader on 522,900. In second is PokerStars qualifier Ernesto Jimenez Estevez, also from Spain, with 332,800. Hot on his heels in third is Toby Lewis from the United Kingdom with a healthy stack of 327,900. Lewis final tabled the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour event in Venice last week.

Other highly-placed players are EPT Deauville champion Jake Cody with 257,700 and Team PokerStars Pro Russia Alex Kravchenko with 159,600. Among the casualties was Day 1 overnight chip leader Nandor Solyom hitting the rail.

Now the 36 remaining players will come back to break through the money (21 are paid) and play down to a final table of eight. With a healthy €328,393.50 prize pool up for grabs and a €95,468.50 first prize, there's a lot to play for in Latvia. Using Google translate, you can keep up with the action as reported by Pavel Sychev over on our sister Russian blog.