Danish pro Frederik Jensen is a close second with 404,000 chips while former WPT winner McLean Karr (330,000) and Austrian Erich Kollmann (275,000) are also in the top 10 chip counts.
McDonald has won over $4 million playing live tournaments and although he’s yet to win a second EPT title he’s certainly come close.
He came fifth at EPT Dortmund the year after winning the same tournament in 2008.
Since then he finished third in EPT Deauville in 2010, sixth in the $5,000 6-Max PLO event at the 2011 WSOP and outright won one of the Epic Poker tournaments last year for $782,410.
One of the best players in the history of the European Poker Tour, McDonald also had deep runs in EPT San Remo and EPT Prague last year.
Money Bubble Set to Burst at 72 Players
Down to the final 112 players, the field at EPT Madrid is starting to take shape with Team PokerStars Pros Johnny Lodden, Angel Guillen and Alex Kravchenko all still in the running for the €545,000 first-place prize.
The entire €2,313,450 prizepool is still up for grabs as the money bubble will burst when the field is reduced to 72 players.
Of course Day 2 also took its toll on a number of players as Arnaud Mattern, Michael Tureniec, David Vamplew, Nacho Barbero, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Anton Ionel and Per Linde all hit the rail.
Action resumes at 12:00 CET tomorrow as players set about busting the money bubble and getting down to the final 24 players.
Here are the top 10 chip counts at the end of play, care of the PokerStars blog:
1. Mike "Timex" McDonald – 409,800 2. Frederik Jensen – 404,500 3. Dmitry Vitkind – 368,000 4. Andries Swart – 339,100 5. McLean Karr – 330,000 6. Javier Etayo – 329,000 7. Erich Kollmann – 275,500 8. Siyu Sha – 274,000 9. Ilan Boujenah – 271,000 10. Ricardo Tavares – 264,300
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