After Day 2 of some great poker at the merit poker classic in North Cyprus the leader board looks like this with John Tabatabai still in front, closely followed by FullTilt pro Phil Gordon.

Phil Gordon was chip leader in the second of the ‘day 1′ s’, as the other half of the field entered the tournament.
Many of the big names in world poker were in action including Chris Ferguson and John Juanda (who was knocked out at the last minute by Gordon)

1. John Tabatabai: 178275
2. Phil Gordon (Full Tilt Poker): 157400
3. Jan Skampa: 156975
4. Ludovic Lacay: 140780
5. Hanna Georges: 128000
6. Andreas Hagen: 125600
7. Tommy Vedes: 122125
8. Joseph El Khoury: 121350
9. Martin Kabrhel: 120350
10. Antonio Esfandiari: 119900

Of the 90 players competing for the first time in Northern Cyprus yesterday, 62 will join the qualifiers from day 1a to make a field of 125 battling it out today. Leaderboard courtesy of Pokernews.com.

Pokernews.com reporter Lynn Gilmartin catches up with local Turkish players Mehmet Deniz and Engin Sancaktaroghu to hear their thoughts on the first ever major WPT Poker tournament in North Cyprus and how it feels to be playing against some of THE big names in world poker.

Stay tuned to www.cypruspokernetwork.com for all the info on the WPT Merit Poker classic tournament.
Keep track of some of the tournament players via their tweets on the right hand side of this page, including @Andy_Bloch, @Roywinston, @repPorter, @lcfplayer,@KK_Poker,and @BrokeLivingJRB