The well known Winamax pro, winner of last year's EPT San Remo main event, bagged up 351,400 after a dominant day at the felt to sit a good 60k ahead of second-place Lauri Pesonen.
Also having an impressive day at the felt was WPT broadcasting anchor Mike Sexton, who showed he still has a lot of chops at the tables by bagging up a sixth-place stack of 241,500.
Pros Still Holding Ground
Despite the relatively small starting field of 173 no shortage of pros will join the frontrunners tomorrow as they play down to the final table.
Back-to-back WPT champ Marvin Rettenmaier moved up the field to finish with a top 15 stack of 187,700.
Battle of Malta host Kara Scott (113,400), WPT Paris champ Matt Salsberg (100,100), PokerStars pro Liv Boeree (93,600), high-stakes crusher Dan Cates (87,600) and the Italian Pirate Max Pescatori (57,800) also made it through, as did WSOP Main Event runner-up Martin Staszko (43,900).
Notables busting out today short of the money (which starts at 21st place) included John Eames, Andrea Dato, Andrey Pateychuk, Alessio Isaia and Dario Alioto.
The top 10 in chips heading into Day 3:
1. Ludovic Lacay 351,400 2. Lauri Pesonen 287,300 3. Erion Islamay 281,200 4. Steve Behm 263,800 5. Giuseppe Pastura 254,000 6. Marcello Montagner 249,000 7. Mike Sexton 241,500 8. Francesco Delfonco 225,000 9. Gianluca Speranza 205,400 10. Angelo Recchia 205,000Action picks up again from the Casino de Venezia at 2:30 pm local time tomorrow. Follow along with the live updates on WPT.com.
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