Marcello Demma held a convincing chip lead as the survivors of both day one flights converged for the start of Day 2 of the PokerStars IPT Venice event. The Italian had 184,000 chips in the bank, 32,400 ahead of day 1A leader Matt Perris.

After registration closed on Day 1B, 439 players had crammed in to have a pop at grabbing the €200,000 top prize.

Through to today's Day 2 is Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso in fourth place with 127,000, well ahead of the room average of 51,000.

Vanessa Rousso

Other notables through include Friends of PokerStars Alberto Russo and Alberto De Nardi, Team PokerStars: Italy player Simone Ruggeri and Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden.

With a total prize pool of €851,660, 64 will get paid, and they'll play down to a final table today (Saturday), with the title being decided tomorrow.

For full coverage, head over to our Italian blog, where you'll find our very own Daniela Calvaruso doing a great job in keeping Italian readers up to date. In Italian. That's not English, but you can still look at the pictures and dip into the chip counts, or just marvel at strange words. You can also keep an eye on the PokerStars IPT site in English.

Venice is a tourist magnet, packed with folks snaking their way through the city's winding streets or gliding gracefully along the waterways on a river taxi to see one of countless historical attractions. So when PokerStars revealed this would be the second stop of its Italian Poker Tour, everyone expected a reasonable turn out.

But no one expected this - 218 players showed up to play Day 1A yesterday, with even more bound to turn up for today's 1B. Such was the interest, they queued from the reception desk, down the hall and out in to the street and the Italian sunshine as they waited patiently to part with the €2,000 + 200 required to take a place around the felt.

Of that impressive number, 45 played yesterday for much less having qualified on PokerStars.

They had the chance to not only take a shot at a big event, but to do so against some of the game's biggest names. Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden was one of those playing yesterday, and he survived to come back to tomorrow's Day 2 with his 20,000 starting stack intact.

Team PokerStars: Italy's Simone Ruggeri

Also through is Team PokerStars: Italy player Simone Ruggeri, and Stefano Puccilli, who won the debut PokerStars IPT event in San Remo. But one of the early casualties was Dutchman Constant Rijkenberg, winner of the EPT San Remo event in April. In total, 86 players survived the day.

Today's Day 1B will be a tough one, with the likes of Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri - keen to do some damage on his home turf - and Marcel Luske stalking the field.

Constant Rijkenberg and Stefano Puccilli

You can follow all the action over on our Italian blog, which will carry more pictures to at least give you a flavor of proceedings even if you can't understand a word of Italian. For more on the IPT, take a look at the PokerStars IPT site.

It's been known as the City of Bridges, the City of Water, and even the City of Light. Now Venice, for a few days at least, can be called the City of Poker, as the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour begins the second leg of its debut season.

The first IPT event in San Remo was a huge hit, with banker Stefano Puccilli walking off with the first prize of €120,000 after a punishing 14-hour final table. Well over 100 players will head to beautiful Venice to play today's (Thursday) and tomorrow's day one flights, with a day 2 on Saturday and the final on Sunday.

Stefano Puccilli, winner of IPT San Remo

While some will be coughing up the €2,000 + 200 to play at Venice's Casino Ca'Vendramin, many more players have secured their seats by qualifying on PokerStars.

They'll be up against some of the biggest names in the game, including Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri, Marcel Luske, Johnny Lodden, Vanessa Rousso and Chad Brown. Also around the felt will be members of Team PokerStars: Italy - Filippo Candio, Simone Ruggeri , Pierpaolo Fabretti, Nicola Fedeli and Elena Ichim.

We'll put up a post at the end of each day here, but our Italian blog will be following all the action and posting chip counts throughout the event. The words may be foreign to you, but you'll get a tremendous flavor of a poker event staged the Italian way. By that I mean it will be loud, excitable, and, well, just plain fun!

If you'd like to find out more, please keep an eye on our IPT website, available here in English, and over here in Italian.

Ciao!