/ Matthew Pitt / 29 March 2012 / Leave a Comment 
Balazs Botond: Chip Leader
Botond flew under the radar for most of the afternoon mainly because he was not involved in many big pots, instead he just went quietly and efficiently about his business; the business of building his stack to a tournament leading level
The Campione leg of the European Poker Tour is getting down to the business end of matters after the 325 players who returned to the Casino di Campione yesterday afternoon were whittled down to just 99. The man who will lead them back into battle when play resumes at 14:00 CET is Hungary's Balazs Botond who is armed with 646,600 chips.
Botond flew under the radar for most of the afternoon mainly because he was not involved in many big pots, instead he just went quietly and efficiently about his business; the business of building his stack to a tournament leading level. Botond may not be a household name but if his form continues in this tournament that could be set to change because he is running well and playing even better, a deadly combination as any poker player will tell you.
Hot on the heels of the Hungarian is Switzerland's Ronnie Kaiser who earlier in Season 8 of the EPT won the Tallinn Main Event. Young Kaiser has also been completely killing the high stakes pot limit Omaha cash games over the past couple of weeks, taking on the big names and coming out on top by over a quarter of a million dollars. He returns to his seat today as the only other player to have cracked the 500,000 chip barrier.
As is usually the case in European Poker Tour events the focus shifts to the fact nobody has ever won two main events despite over 90 of them being played so far. That particular story will rear its head today also because there are no fewer than eight former champions still in the tournament. Along with the aforementioned Kaiser there are David Vamplew, Liv Boeree, Rupert Elder, Roberto Romanello, Nicolas Chouity, Martin Finger and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier still in with a chance of doing what nobody has done before and win two EPT trophies.
The astute amongst you will have noticed that four of those former champions are British, and each of them are are in great shape to mount a serous title charge. Elder has just under an average chip stack but the rest have at least double that, with Vamplew leading the quartet with a stack of 412,900 chips; enough to place him fourth overall. Vamplew won the 2010 EPT London Main Event and we would bet good money on him making it through Day 3 because he is playing full of confidence and the deck is smacking him in the face on a regular basis.
Play gets underway at 13:00GMT (14:00 CET) and will continue until just 24 players have chips in front of them. This means the bubble is guaranteed to burst at some point as only 88 players will be paid and there are 99 left in the field. Who will be the disappointed 11? Tune in tomorrow to find out.
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