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The second Main Event of the Epic Poker League’s inaugural season is currently well under way in Las Vegas at the Palms Resort Casino. A total of 96 players arrived and paid their sizable buy-ins, creating a prize pool of just over $2.3 million. Jaime Kaplan, who qualified for Main Event 2 through an EPL Pro/Am, is leading the charge with a chip stack measuring 324,600. Kaplan was actually just on the wrong side of the qualifier bubble in 10th place following the Pro/Am, but a late withdrawal from Michael DiVita afforded him a seat.

Just under half of the Pro/Am qualifiers have already hit the rail, including Andreas Holvold, Russell Rosenblum, Jeremy Ausmus and Brandon Meyers. Some of the more famous pros joining them on the rail include Vanessa Selbst, Phil Laak, Gavin Smith and Antonio Esfandiari. The qualifiers that managed to survive the day include Greg Mueller, Sean Getzwiller, Nam Le and the divisive Phil Hellmuth.

Although Kaplan is the only Pro/Am qualifier currently holding a dangerous chip stack, plenty of those who bought in directly are hot on his trail. The leaderboard is filled with worthy challengers such as Mike McDonald, Alec Torell, Dan O’Brien and Chino Rheem, who was victorious in EPL Main Event 1, but has been embroiled in debt repayment controversy ever since.

Justin Bonomo, who recently announced his decision to move to Malta to continue his online poker career, managed to knock out Michael Mizrachi on the strength of his J-J. Bonomo will join a total of 50 other players on Day 2.

Action is expected to become even more fierce on Day 2, when the field of 51 will whittle itself down further. The top 12 players will receive a payout, with a tidy sum of $782k reserved for the winner.