We came to play down to the money. We got there, but the route was less predictable and featured a few more bumps than anyone had imagined. Attention is always on the chip leaders - the players most likely to shape days three and four - but today their story was one of collapse and elimination as one by one the big stacks from this afternoon had turned to dust by this evening.

Frenchman Antony Lellouche, who was protected behind a chip wall that peaked at 100,000 today, succumbed to a change in luck which, on day one, had favoured him royally, starting with a fortuitous kings against aces double up. Nothing like that luck today for Lellouche, busting from the tournament with panache but empty handed, after a last ditch clash with Andrea Benelli.

The former EPT London champion Mark Teltscher met the same fate, exiting within throwing distance of the money. Teltscher was one of eight former champions playing today, another being the Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand Grospellier who was looking good for a run on the double before he too was shuffled away by a day designed to ruin the wealthy.

That there were so many former champions in the field had the press corps cooing over the possibility of a first double winner. The list was distinguished – Jepson, Ruthenberg, Teltscher, ElkY, Perrault, Griffin. All arrived with hope but all were rail bound, leaving the responsibly on the shoulders of two players.

The EPT Dublin champion Roland de Wolfe looks to be the boy most likely, ending the day by bagging 170,000. There remains another hope in EPT Prague winner Arnaud Mattern, who rallied late on, bursting the bubble, and finishing with 130,000. But if tomorrow is as cruel to the leaders as today there’s no counting out the Frenchman; a cautionary tale for tonight’s chip leader, the PokerStars player Sergey Shcherbatskiy on 265,900.

Poised to cause havoc tomorrow are the remaining Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier. While Minieri spent much of the day being massaged to within an inch of his life, he massaged a stack that yesterday had touched the 3,000 line before lifting off to fly where the air is thin, an altitude of 211,000.

While those kinds of numbers make for sweet dreams, spare a thought for Hans Eskilsson, EPT Warsaw’s bubble boy, who leaves with nothing more than the nightmares of a white knuckle losing battle in Casinos Poland. Eskilsson had done well to have recovered from a crippling hand earlier in the day, but when making his move was unable to steer his A-9 passed the A-Q of Moises Ramos or more crucially the pocket kings of Mattern. With him gone this chapter of the EPT was closed.

Tomorrow the remaining 24 will return and start again, seeking not just a reward for survival, but a coveted final table seat. Will the possibility of a double winner remain alive by that time? And will Team PokerStars Pro Minieri remain a contender to win the EPT title he must feel he deserves? Just another day on the European Poker Tour.