Today the EPT debuted its season six structure -- rather like a sports team running out for the final game of the year wearing their all-new strip. After one-hour levels through days 1a and 1b, we went to 75 minutes and a whole new selection of blind levels. With a 30,000 stack at the tournament start, plus all this additional play, the best deep-stacked tournament players in the world had finally got what they wanted. And they duly stepped up to show their gratitude.

The day two chip leaderboard features 149 survivors and has the names Marc Naalden, Annette Obrestad, Johannes Strassmann and Joe Ebanks in its top bundle, jockeying for the ultimate chip lead. The Dutchman, Naalden, edged it at the very end with 777,000. But they will all sleep soundly in Monaco tonight.

Scroll down the page for the very latest, complete count

Naalden made a final table in Copenhagen on season two of the EPT, finishing third for the Danish equivalent of $116,281. And since then, the former tournament chess player has put together a string of major poker results, including four World Series cashes (and one final table), victory in a side event at the Amsterdam Master Classics, and just last month another first place in a $1,500 buy-in tournament in Austria.

Marc Naalden

As for Obrestad, we may not have heard much from her on the EPT this season, but form is temporary and class permanent, and the Norwegian sensation is among the classiest of all acts. How she got there was simply owing to that spectacular tournament nous. Whenever a reporter passed her table, she was in a pot. Moments later she had won it, usually without showing her hand. This pattern changed towards the end when a pot did go to showdown. Obrestad had a mere royal flush - her first in live play - and she bagged up about 670,000.

Annette Obrestad

For the final levels of the day, Obrestad shared a table with Strassmann, the PokerStars.de ShootingStar, who is now shining the brightest among a continuing constellation of German talent. He won a monster pot late on - turning a straight with his mighty 7-8 - and kept his stack at the half-million mark until the bagging and tagging process began.

Johannes Strassmann

Ebanks, or ender555 as he is known in cyberspace, has been working in recent months on translating his devastating online tournament game to the live arena. He made a final table on the LAPT in Costa Rica last year, cashed in a side event at the PCA in January, and took down the €1,000 supplementary tournament in San Remo only last week. Ebanks bagged up around 500,000 too - and is on form, online or off.

Joe Ebanks

This man, Vadim Shlez, from New York, also hasn't finished having his say.

Vadim Shlez

Shlez finished off the serial EPT casher, Joao Barbosa, at around about the mid-point of today's action - and went on an amazing run since then. He also has more than 500,000 and is hotly in the mix.

For Team PokerStars Pro, it was a day of consolidation. Lee Nelson began the day as chip leader and although he no longer wears that crown, he still has plenty of chips - 305,000 to be precise, which translates as a very sold day's work. Luca Pagano is unlikely to hand over his title as the most solid, however, and he seems on course for another record-breaking cash on the EPT, finishing today with 400,000 and change.

Lee Nelson

Luca Pagano

They are joined in tomorrow's redraw by Joe Hachem, Andre Akkari, Isabelle Mercier and Alex Kravchenko - their presence more than compensating for the loss of many of the others searching for glory. They'll line up alongside others such as Michael Tureniec, Phil Laak and Sami Kelopuro in a glittering field.

And it's some glory: tournament officials announced today that the total prize pool was €9,350,000, with the champion set to take €2,300,000 of that.

Joe Hachem

The money bubble will burst sometime tomorrow. We reconvene at noon, and need to lose 60 players before we enter the slowdown preceding the elimination of our last non-casher. That, as ever, will be described in all its anxious majesty here, accompanied - as ever - by photography by Neil Stoddart and video blogs and player interviews courtesy of our friends at PokerStars.tv.

And we have friends overseas as well, equipped with funny tongues. They can tell you all about today in French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, German and Swedish. Enjoy.

And remember to follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter for more updates and breaking news.

That, then, is that. We leave you with Paul Testud on a bicycle.

Goodnight!

Full, official chip count at the end of day two/start day three at EPT Monte Carlo

The tournament has finished for the day and the process of bagging and tagging has begun. As Thomas Kremser announced that there would be seven more hands prior to the finish, I camped myself around the table featuring the half million stacks of Annette Obrestad and Johannes Strassmann.

The young Norwegian was habitually minimum raising hands, taking down the majority of pots, though any possibility of a million chip pot between the two was distinclty remote. they did play a pot together but Strassmann took it down on the flop.

Obrestad does not surrender pots easily, demonstrated when she flat-called a check-raise from 11,000 to 35,000 on a [as][8h][3d] board, before both checked the [8s] turn. On the river [4h], the big blind checked once more before folding to a 38,000 bet, Annette showing a deftly played [10c][9c]. The big blind claimed he passed A-3 which drew a "wow," from the internet star.

The best was yet to come. Obrestad raised from the small blind to 12,000 with the big blind making the call. She bet 16,000 on the [kc][jh][4s] flop, which was called, before having a 27,500 bet raised to 82,500 on the [10h] turn. A speedy call followed, before she checked the [qh] river to her opponent. After some deliberation he checked behind, as Obrestad said quietly, "royal flush." The big blind threw his [qc][9h] into the muck face up as she flipped over [ah][kh] for the stone cold nuts.

"I can't bet it though!" she said afterwards, "my first ever royal flush...in live poker anyway."

Into the last level and Joe Hachem is taking it easy. The Team PokerStars Pro isn't letting up card wise, but there's a drink with lots of ice and he's laughing and joking. This is civilised poker. Humberto Brenes walks by. He and Hachem conduct a conversation without say in a word, using just facial expressions to relay that Brenes was out.

While Hachem has the highest success at World Series and WPT level the EPT has always proven an enigma for the Aussie, with just one cash. But that cash came here, 12 months ago, during some thrilling closing stages. In a packed room, Hachem battled to an 11th place finish worth €101,000, agonisingly close to the final table. His stack of 200,000 plus right now might just be the start of a re-run.

On the next table Annette Obrestad is still romping towards the lead. With four players paying 10,500 to see the flop Obrestad re-raised Johannes Strassmann's bet of 22,500 on a flop of [jd][9s][3c], 58,000 enough to put off
the German.

STOP PRESS: Things have changed in the time it took to type that. Joe Hachem just lost a post that has dampened his fortunes a little, now down to 110,000. On the flip side of that Johannes Strassmann has just one a huge pot that could put him close to the lead.

My colleague, Chris Hall, had just written the post below about George Danzer flying up the leaderboard. But just before he hit publish, we got wind of another hand, featuring Danzer's fellow ShootingStar, that simply had to take priority.

Here we go:

Johannes Strassmann has just won a monster pot, possibly putting him into the chip lead with 550,000. A player under the gun limped and to his left, Strassmann made it 10,500. It was folded to the big blind, who made it 31,200; both others called.

The flop came [4c][6d][3h] and after the big blind checked, it got nasty. The under-the-gun player bet 30,000, Strassmann made it 120,000, the big blind folded and the under-the-gun player moved all in. Call. Of course.

Strassmann had 6-5 for top pair and open-ended straight draw. His opponent had pocket jacks. The seven on the turn was one of Strassmann's outs and he shot into the chip lead.

***

And now back to Chris:

After a couple of hours solid grinding PokerStars ShootingStar George Danzer has managed to move into overdrive hitting with A-K against Asa Smith's kings before having an even bigger hand shortly afterwards. Danzer fired out a pot bet on a [ah][js][ks] flop which his opponent just called, on the [4c] turn, Danzer set his opponent in and was instantly called, the German's jaw dropped and said, "Wow," flipping [as][jc] yet expecting to be behind.

The other player carefully put his chips in the middle before finally turning over a dominating [ad][kc] and standing up. But the poker gods had other ideas about the hand and dealt out the [jd] on the river, at once Danzer jumped out of his chair in sheer shock of the outdraw given the pot was almost 200,000 at this point.

Afterwards, Danzer explained the hand had some history: "Earlier he called a big bet on the turn of a A-T-T-8 board with K-J and hit a gutshot on the river. I just bet pot on the flop and pot on the turn to set him in, there was little else I could do."

As a result, Danzer now is on a chunky 350,000.

The final level of play has started and the field has been reduced to 170. The players in the boss seats are Joe Ebanks, Vadim Shlez and Annette Obrestad, who have about 500,000, 450,000 and 415,000 respectively.

Ebanks might not immediately register on the radar of many live tournament followers, despite a final table at the LAPT event in Costa Rica last year. However, filling the " " between his first and last names with the online moniker ender555 should raise his familiarity a notch. ender555, has been in the top ten of the online tournament leaderboards for some time, and has been taking down the major tournaments with startling regularity. Here in Monte Carlo, he's simply a young and quiet guy with an iPod, which could fit scores of similar competitors. But those chips stand him well out from the crowd.

Shlez would be another missable enigma, were it not for the towers of gold and red chips in front of him. The man from New York inched into this event in the final satellite tournament in Monte Carlo. And he very nearly didn't make it. He was all in on the bubble and made a full house with his ace-six to survive. Then another player was knocked out giving all those remaining their seat in the Grand Final.

He's made fine use of it so far, most notably eliminating the impossibly obdurate Joao Barbosa, and continuing to build up close to the half million mark.

As for Obrestad. Well, a player whose first name is usually enough to send shivers down the spine of poker players hardly needs any further introduction.

The PokerStars qualifier Stephen Chow is sitting on almost 300,000 now but had a spot of bother earlier. He was looking to push anyway and picked up A-T, but then thought the dealer had asked him to give back his cards because of a misdeal. He accidentally ended up showed the ace which meant he got dealt a new card and then got another ten for pocket tens instead. Improving his hand was a bonus but running into pocket jacks was not, and of course, the ace came down meaning if he'd kept his original cards he would've won.

Despite this setback, he has recovered well to put him as the chip leader on the table that also features John Shipley, Andreas Hoivold and Marcel Luske, two former EPT champions and the Flying Dutchman.

Luske was recently entertaining the table with an anecdote of how he asked for all mirrors in his hotel room to be removed other than one for shaving as Luske does not like to look at himself. Better than his singing?

It's been a slow half hour for Alex Kravchenko at the start of level 14. Everyone at the table is in a lull, watching most hands settled pre-flop. The only action the Team PokerStars Pro gets is his own pre-flop raise which gets no takers.

So when Humberto Brenes, also at the table, called the all-in of Shawn Busse, the excitement was enough to get everyone leaning forward. A hand with chips, cards, showdowns and everything. It was brilliant.

Or it was for everyone but Brenes. The Team PokerStars Pro could only growl as his kings went up against aces. Busse had made it 8,000 pre-flop and Brenes had re-raised to 26,000 total. Busse then announced all-in which, after a few "whats?", Brenes agreed to call.

"What can I do?" he asked, the victim of a distinct lack of cards. The flop, turn and river, the first for a while, did nothing to change things.

"Good luck" he said. Brenes out.

Sami Kelopuro is on a roll. Having previously never made the money at an EPT, he was audibly delighted even to get to the dinner break on day one in San Remo last week, and only a blind-on-blind battle with Danilo D'Ettoris stopped him making the final table. He was eliminated in 12th for €45,700 - not a bad pay-day for most players, but loose change for the guy known as LarsLuzak online, a regular at the very highest stakes tables.

But he's back in the fray - and back among the chips - here on day two at the Grand Final, where's he is sitting on a table with Michael Tureniec and Ami Barer, among others, and is playing pretty much every single pot.

Sami Kelopuro

That's a good thing and a bad thing. Certainly Kelopuro is picking up a lot of blinds and antes, and is getting paid off on his genuine hands, as opponents are either too scared to tangle or think he's at it all the time. He climbed beyond 200,000 at one point and was bossing - he's a fearsome presence at the table, with iPod in, fixed glare and busy chip-fingers. But just recently, his opponents have begun to bite back.

Kelopuro raised to 6,000 from the button and Ami Barer, the PokerStars qualifier from Canada, who was among the overnight chip leaders, called from the big blind. The flop came [9h][jh][8d] and both players checked. The turn was [qh] and after Barer checked, Kelopuro bet 10,500, which prompted a raise from Barer. He made it 25,500 and Kelopuro called.

The river was a frightening looking [8c], which would fill up and boats, and outdraw any made straights or flushes. That probably explained Barer's slight hesitation before he moved all in for something in the region of 60,000, and probably played even more significantly on the mind of Kelopuro, who thought for an eternity before calling.

Barer showed [3h][2h] for the turned baby flush. Kelopuro resignedly said: "It's good," before flashing the ten. Barer, who had previously lost a good chunk of his overnight stack to Kelopuro, hauled back about 70,000 and went to a 15-minute break with about 170,000. That was almost precisely what Kelopuro was left with as the battle continues to rage.

***

We waved goodbye earlier to another fearsome Nordic player earlier, the Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden. But not before the video blog team got hold of him.