The former is a 20-year-old youngster hailing from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. Tamasauskas is now in shape to come to fame on the live scene for the first time, entering Day 3 with 2,198,000 chips to lead 53 survivors.
His five years older fellow countryman Praninskas has already cashed here at EPT12 Prague, finishing seventh in the €1k Hyper Turbo for €7,480.
However, it's the world of online poker where he reached his biggest achivements so far. Praninskas has already amassed more than $200k profit on PokerStars and those earnings include a WCOOP title as well as a Sunday Warm-Up first place. He is the only player to join Tamauskas over two million chip-mark, bagging 2,047,000.
Although today's main story was conquered by the Lithuanian couple, the remaining field is still loaded with some big names - 2011 WSOP Main Event runner-up Martin Staszko (1,456,000), EPT10 Grand Final third place finisher Malte Moennig (1,350,000), EPT11 Prague champion Stephen Graner (1,123,000), Ari Engel (1,059,000), Andrew Chen (1,050,000) and EPT10 Vienna finalist Simeon Naydenov (920,000).
Day 2 top five chip counts:
1st - Vladas Tamasauskas, Lithuania, PokerStars player, 2,198,000
2nd - Rytis Praninskas, Lithuania, PokerStars player, 2,047,000
3rd - Meir Ben Shimon, Israel, 1,864,000
4th - Mihaita Croitoru, Romania, 1,654,000
5th - Igor Untilov, Moldova, PokerStars player, 1,616,000
Eureka Prague Main Event history:
Season 1: 329 players, €231,290 prize pool, Keith Johnson (UK) for €58,400
Season 2: 652 players, €632,440 prize pool, Menikos Panagiotou (Cyprus) for €137,100
Season 3: 1,315 players, €1,275,550 prize pool, Dimitri Holdeew (Germany) for €226,400
Season 4: 1,738 players, €1,685,860 prize pool, Balazs Botond (Hungary) for €206,948
The EPT 12 Prague Poker Festival features a record 97 tourneys at the Hilton Prague from December 5-16, as well as EPT-run cash games running round the clock. A record 185 tables will be in operation and a record 250 staff working the event.
Source: EPT press release
