Cooper in the mood to grind

Our first break in play has arrived and having lost just two players, the average stack still hovers around 20,000 - as does Andy Cooper.

By his own confession, the high stakes cash game player - whose online handle is Mr. Grinder - hasn't always applied his A-game to ParadisePoker Tour events, but he plans to make this one different.

"I raised with 99 on my first hand and was 3-bet, but I folded on a 10-high flop and the guy showed me Jacks, so I'm playing smarter!"

The Brit's personal best performance to date was an eight-hour stint in Barcelona, which was cruelly ended by a bad beat, and he is two hours down, six to go having barely played a hand. "You've got to fold those K2s," he smiled.

Here's a selected chip count as we enter Level 3:

Lennart Akervall - 32,000

Robert Haigh - 23,000

Zoltan Kapitany - 21,000

Andreas Zauner - 21,000

Johnny Jensen - 20,000

Nat Jarmonthavat - 19,000

Susanne Jensen - 18,000