The 26-year-old Nguyen, a live and online MTT specialist with some impressive scores to his credit, hit a huge full house mid-day against Michael Mizrachi's nut flush to bust one of his top rivals.
The huge pot bumped his stack up to the top of the field and he capped the day with 490,800 - good for third overall.
Nitsche, meanwhile, steadily grew his stack over the day -- including a stint at the feature table -- to also bag up a top-five stack with 434,600.
Finn Aku Joentausta is the overall leader heading into Day 3 with 751,300, but with plenty of experience deep in big tournaments and the hometown crowd on their side, Nguyen and Nitsche will be front and center at the tables tomorrow.
Kitai, Naujoks, Anderson Among Threats
With 175 players left there are still plenty of roadblocks in the young Germans' path to the title.
Former EPT Berlin champ Davidi Kitai is certainly one of them. Kitai bagged up 282,100 for a top-20 stack of his own and an eye on another deep run in Berlin.
German PokerStars pro Sandra Naujoks is also in contention with a stack of 190,800, as is "true grinder" Calvin Anderson with 178,700.
Theo Jorgensen (171,600), Olivier Busquet (170,000), Pratyush Buddiga (134,900), Bryn Kenney (120,000) and Liv Boeree (85,400) are a few other notables to survive to Day 3.
The top 10 in chips after Day 2:
1. Aku Joentausta 751,300 2. Ronny Voth 526,100 3. Khiem Nguyen 490,800 4. Lukasz Golczyk 448,200 5. Dominik Nitsche 434,600 6. Pascal Vos 426,000 7. Pal Koppegodt 424,300 8. Mike Kunze 420,000 9. Eilert Eilertsen 383,600 10. Artur Rudziankov 366,200For a full recap of today's action, check the PokerStars blog. For live streaming of the Day 3 feature table tomorrow, check back right here on PokerListings at 6 am ET.
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