PokerStars pro Williams, who caught a last-minute flight from Vegas to enter on Day 1b, was happy with his decision today as he ran his stack up to 321,200 to finish the day sixth overall.
Julius, who’s been on a live MTT tear over the last year or so, continued his hot run and is right on Williams’ heels with 303,700 to sit seventh overall.
With just 121 players remaining, they'll enter Day 3 play with pole position for a spot in the money at 57 players and the now-determined €1 million first-place prize.
Stacked Top 20 Includes Saout, Lichtenberger, Bonomo
While Williams and Julius are the biggest names positioned at the top of the leaderboard they’re far from the only talented ones.
Just off the pace of chip leader Gaston Onana, who bagged up 412,000, is former November Niner Antoine Saout.
Using the home court to his advantage, Saout bagged up 374,700 to sit third overnight.
Right behind him is Dane Simon Ravnsbaek with 370,800 while pro Max Greenwood also snuck into the top 10 with 280,100.
Belgian Davidi Kitai (252,500), high-roller stalwart Phillip Gruissem (235,000), Andrew Lichtenberger (233,200) and Justin Bonomo (225,200) also bagged up top 20 stacks.
Mohsin Charania, Thomas Wahlroos, Peter Jetten and Michael Mizrachi will also return for Day 3 with good-sized stacks.
Notable bustouts today included Tom “durrrr” Dwan, in Dwan-esque fashion, Patrik Antonius, Jason Mercier, Sam Trickett, Vanessa Selbst, Jon Duhamel and Pius Heinz.
Partouche Backtracks on €5m Guarantee
Speaking of Bonomo, he was among the players particularly upset at the aforementioned controversy that tinted the day.
In short: Partouche advertised a €5 million guarantee for this year's main event. Under 600 players bought in at €8,500, making the prize pool of €4.3 million short some €700k.
Instead of putting up the overlay, however, Partouche backed off its claim of a guarantee instead.
Archived web pages said differently, but to this point Partouche is sticking to its claim it didn't guarantee anything.
The current posted payout scale also shows just €4.3 million returning to the players with €1 million slotted for first.
Bonomo was among the most vocal about it on Twitter and he wasn't shy about his intentions:
If @partouchepoker fixes the prize pool I will forgive. Otherwise I will never play there again and I will keep spreading the word.
— Justin Bonomo (@JustinBonomo) September 5, 2012Read more on the controversy here.
Despite the money issue, play will carry on tomorrow from Cannes starting at noon local time.
Follow along with the live updates (in French) here and track chip counts here.
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