Noah Schwartz Takes the Lead at EPL Mix-Max

Noah Schwartz grabbed the chip lead at the end of the second day of the Epic Poker League’s Mix-Max tournament, putting himself in excellent position to make the money at the league’s third tournament of the season.

Schwartz has 352,200 chips, well above the current average of 200,000. However, it’s a tightly packed field at the tip, with Faraz Jaka, David Williams, and Michael Mizrachi all also holding stacks of over 300,000 chips.

The EPL’s third event saw a nice round field of 100 players participate, creating a prize pool of nearly $2.4 million (including the $400,000 added to the prize pool by the league itself). The tournament is now scheduled to play 12 players, with $797,680 going to the eventual winner.

The Mix-Max format is an innovative – but increasingly popular – tournament format that was also seen at the World Series of Poker Europe this fall. In this format, the players began playing at tables that features eight players each; however, this number has come down throughout the event. On Day 2, players began playing seven-handed, and a redraw with 36 players saw the players move to six-handed play. Later in the event, the tables will get down to four players each; finally, the final two players will play a best-of-three heads up series to determine the winner.

Several of the hottest names in poker are still alive in the hunt for their first EPL title. Jason Mercier and Sam Stein both have chip stacks that are above the tournament average, while Andrew Lichtenberger, Eric Froehlich and Yevgeniy Timoshenko are all just below the chip average but still have healthy stacks. Sorel Mizzi and Hasan Habib are both on short stacks, with Matthew Graham bringing up the rear with just 47,300 chips.

On Day 3, the tournament will play down to the money bubble of 12 players. The winner of EPL Event #3 will be crowned on Sunday.