The second day of play has come to a close at the World Series of Poker Europe, presented by Betfair. With 15 minutes left on the clock the announcement was made that each table would play 5 more hands then be done for the night. As the tables wrapped up, there were some last minute eliminations and some big pots raked in during the waning moments of play.

Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman (left) was able to pick up a nice pot with a call on the river. Chris had raised to 3,600 from under the gun and James Keys made it 11,200 from the button. After asking how much more, Moorman put in the chips to make the call and the players saw the T44 flop. Chris sent the action over to Keys who put in a bet of 15,400. Moorman made the call and the turn was the 2. Both players checked to the A river where Moorman again passed and left it up to Keys to make a bet. He did, putting out 32k. Moorman shook his head, at one point bouncing his fist into his mouth making it look like he was hitting himself. Finally he made the call and Keys was reluctant to show his hand. After a pause Chris flipped over his QQ and Keys then mucked his hand without ever showing. After picking off the bluf from Keys the stack in front of Moorman grew to around 200k. By the time the last hand was dealt at his table Moorman had a final total of 219,500.

Scott “R_A_Y” Montgomery was hoping to make for a major storyline by making the final table of both the main event in Vegas and the WSOP Europe main event final table. That hope ended a few minutes before play wrapped up when Scott busted out of the tournament.

Tim “Tmay420″ West’s recovery from the short stack held up to the end of play, with Tim bagging up chips totalling 58,600. Jeff “ActionJeff” Garza finished with 43,200. Peter “#1Pen” Neff had a quiet but solid day, ending up with 130,400.

The top stacks are all around the 300k mark with Andy Bloch, Erik Seidel, and Brian “sbrugby” Townsend all in the mix with John Juanda and Justin “Boosted J” Smith (right) not too far behind.

The full list of end of day chip counts is Available Here.

Below are the top 20 chip counts at the end of day 2 play.

• September 29, 2008 -- Heating Up
• September 30, 2008 -- Juanda, Negreanu, Boosted J Lead The Way into Day 4
• September 30, 2008 -- Peter Prospers, Townsend Tumbles
• September 30, 2008 -- Garza Ousted, Moorman Doubles; 45 Left

After battling all day with a short stack, there has been an upturn for Tim “Tmay420″ West.  Coming out of the last break of the day with around 16k it took Tim less than half an hour to run his stack up to 65k.  It took a come from behind win with his A-8 all in against the A-Q of Peter Gould to get started, but after that double up the next one came with his pocket kings against pocket sixes.

“It was nice to look down and see kings,” Tim said.  “It had been a while.”  The kings hand was not all in preflop, but what didn’t go in pre got in on the flop where Tim’s overpair to the board held up against pocket sixes. 

Former tablemate Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar ran pocket jacks into Chris Williamsson’s pocket aces and has been eliminated from the tournament.  Williamsson has been on a tear, picking up aces and kings, and then more aces, and more aces.  In Aguiar’s last hand the two went back and forth raising and reraising till all the chips went in, but by the time Aguiar got a bad feeling he had to much in the pot and too little left to let it go.

Ben Grundy (right) was not far behind Aguiar.  After losing a pot to Negreanu, Ben moved in the next hand from the button for 17,400.  Daniel thought from the small blind for a minute before saying “I just found these [chips] so I guess I’ll call.”  Then before Daniel had his hands off the stack of 17,400 chips the player in the big blind said all in, prompting a “No” from Daniel as he jokingly acted like he was going to take his 17k back. 

Once the joking was over Daniel went into math class to make his decision.  The other player’s all in represented 36k on top of the 17,400 the three players already had in the pot.  He decided he was getting 3 to 1 on his money and pointed out that he had to beat both players.  “I can’t be in that good of shape,” Daniel said before somewhat reluctantly folding.  Ben then showed the A3 while his opponent had the AK.  Daniel said he was dominated and on the Q726Q board the AK held up to eliminate Grundy.  Daniel said he would also have lost to the AK.

Daniel’s relatively new training site has had a lot of success, but one of the key instructors at the site saw his WSOPE event end late in day 2.  Adam “A_Junglen” Junglen (left) and his PokerVT patch have both made their exit from the tourney.

• September 29, 2008 -- Chippers
• September 29, 2008 -- Midday Rush
• September 27, 2008 -- All Day For A Quarter, Day 1A Complete
• September 29, 2008 -- Heating Up

“It’s like a party in here,” an animated Daniel Negreanu said after he was moved to table three in the dungeon area and after pausing for a moment he followed up with “a really hot party.”  There are six tables in the room, all with lighting for TV overhead.  Between the high power lights putting off heat and the crowded room being slam full of players, dealers, media, floormen, TV crews, fans, and massage girls the temperature has been on the rise since the dinner break. 

The six tables in the Face to Face room referred to as the dungeon make up 2/3rds of the remaining tables.  The other three are out in the main part of the casino.  Before being moved into the dungeon area Jeff “ActionJeff” Garza (right) had another player all in with his set of tens in commanding position when all the chips went on the turn.  His opponent had only two outs with his pocket queens, but a queen on the river left Jeff to think about what might have been had he collected the 130k chip pot. 

Instead, he is having to deal with what is, which is a chip stack below the 85k average, but not critical.  He has been moved to the Tim “Tmay420″ West / Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar table that is the shortest table of the tournament in total chips with no huge stacks and plenty of smallish ones, including West who was able to again double up but still only has 16k.

Stephen “Stevie444″ Chidwick and David “Raptor” Benefield have both been eliminated.  Chidwick (left) was all in against Andy Black with pocket threes trying to hold up against Black’s AT.  The A-T-x flop left Chidwick chasing a set that did not materialize and just before the end of the level Stevie was eliminated.

Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman, Peter “#1Pen” Neff and Scott “R_A_Y” Montgomery are going strong out in the main area.  Neff seems to have settled in around 125k while Montgomery has bounced back from an earlier blow and now is back up to around 60k.  A stoic Fischman has over 100k in front of him at the table.

Also getting some attention from the cameras in the dungeon are chip leader Brian “sbrugby” Townsend and Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman.  Near the end of the level Moorman was seen raking in a pot, but the crush of people around the table made it impossible to get any details on the hand. 

Around 80 players went to break, but the last 2 hour level will send more than a few of them home tonight with no chips to return to tomorrow.  Who will falter, who will survive, who will prosper?  Two hours left in day 2 to find out.

• September 29, 2008 -- Finish Strong, Day 2 Complete
• September 27, 2008 -- All Day For A Quarter, Day 1A Complete
• September 30, 2008 -- Juanda, Negreanu, Boosted J Lead The Way into Day 4
• September 30, 2008 -- Peter Prospers, Townsend Tumbles

Around 17 hours of play have passed since the players sat down with their starting stacks of 20k chips.  Tim “Tmay420″ West finished Day 1A a mere quarter shy of his starting stack and has been short for the entirity of day 2 play.  He is now down in the 10 big blind area where options are pretty much limited to pushing all in or folding your hand.

If good things come to those who are patient, there should be a bright future for West.  He has been the epitome of patience, folding ragged hand aftrer ragged hand.  Finally he did move in for exactly 9k (blinds are 500 / 1k with a 100 ante) and picked up the blinds.  Tim showed the 2 and another player at the table said “He’s not a super nit.”  Even playing the short stack West looks to be having as much fun as anyone.  Next up for him will almost surely be a double up or a bust.

The table with West and Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar (right) is short stacked all around with no huge stacks and most of the players below average.  A new addition to the table picked off a player when his aces held up against AK, and when the next table broke Jeff “ActionJeff” Garza found his way to the empty seat to the right of Tim and two seats to the left of Aguiar.  “Finally they brought a fish to the table,” Aguiar said in a sarcastic tone about Jeff’s arrival.

Brian “sbrugby” Townsend has jumped to the top of the chip counts, sitting with 260k.  Over at the feature table Jamie Rosen saw his day come to an end shortly after dinner. “Up and down,” pretty much summed up what Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman thought of his day so far.

• September 29, 2008 -- Finish Strong, Day 2 Complete
• September 29, 2008 -- 99 Players of Poker on Break
• September 30, 2008 -- Peter Prospers, Townsend Tumbles
• September 30, 2008 -- Garza Ousted, Moorman Doubles; 45 Left

Well, maybe a few less than 99 but no more than that.  About 5 minutes before play ended on the thrid level of the day the 12th table was broken leaving only 11 tables playing 9 handed each.  The remaining players are on their 2 hour dinner break and will return to play 2 more levels tonight.

Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar finished up the level with around 50k after going on a swing of winning a pot, losing a pot, and repeating the process.  Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you want to look at it the pots ended up all breaking even to leave Aguiar about where he started.  The last pot he called an all in for 9,500 and his 99 only had to outrun Jani Vilmunen’s Q-4 offsuit.  A queen on the flop was the opposite of what Aguiar wanted to see and things didn’t improve as the rest of the board ran out.

A short Tim “Tmay420″ West got lucky to double up when his A-5 overcame pocket tens.  With the double up West has 18k, an improvement over where he was but still leaving him as one of the shorter stacks in the tournament. 

Not so short stacked going into dinner break is Brian “sbrugby” Townsend (left).  After a player opened for 2,400 Brian raised to 7,400.  His opponent put his hands behind his stack like he was about to push in, them seemed to decide it wasn’t the time and said “nice bluff” as he folded his hand.  “Not a bluff” Townsend replied as he stood up to exit on dinner break.  A quick count of his chips for the ESPN crew put him at an exact count of 147,500.

• September 29, 2008 -- Hanging On
• September 29, 2008 -- Finish Strong, Day 2 Complete
• September 29, 2008 -- Heating Up
• September 29, 2008 -- Chippers