2011 EPT Tallinn Day 1b: Oscar Lima Leads From Start to Finish
Day 1b of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Tallinn Main Event has been relegated to the history books and if you were to look into them, you would discover that a 23-year-old Spaniard by the name of Oscar Lima was the player who ended the day with the most chips. In fact, he has more chips than any player during both starting days.
Lima flew under the radar for most of the day, but all eyes will be on him when he returns to his seat on Thursday armed with a colossal 132,000-chip stack. This is Lima's first European Poker Tour event, which he chose for no other reason than it was the first stop on the calendar, and he thought it would be an ideal place to start his EPT career.
Finishing Day 1b second in chips, as well as second in chips overall, is Finland's Jani Sointula, a regular in the biggest poker tournaments all over the world. He ran his 30,000 starting stack up 77,000 by the end of the second level, and by the time the tournament director announced the end of the day, Sointula had to bag up 123,950 in chips. He has never won an EPT title, although he did finish runner-up to Nacho Barbero in the £20,000 High Roller Event at last year's EPT London festival.
At the beginning of the day, we predicted that 200 players would put down the €4,250 entry fee for Day 1b. We were almost correct; 190 hopefuls entered the vast casino at the luxurious Swissotel, looking for glory. Of those 190 players, 60 went home empty handed, which means Day 2 will see a total of 198 return to the felt to raise, continuation bet, and bluff their way through to Day 3.
Among them will be Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri, JP Kelly and Ville Wahlbeck. They all made it safely through Day 1b and will be joined by three teammates who survived Day 1a, Arnaud Mattern, Richard Toth and Marcin Horecki. Other notables to look out for are, Praz Bansi, Martin Jacobson, and EPT Prague winner, Roberto Romanello.
Toward the end of Day 1b, tournament officials announced that the prize pool reached €1,071,600 and would be shared among the top 40 finishers in this tournament. A min-cash will earn players €6,500, but everyone is playing for the €275,000 first-place prize. The money is a long way away at the moment and the players simply have to concentrate on making it through Day 2 unscathed.
Which of them will do just that and which of them will have to wait until Barcelona for European Poker Tour glory? Follow the PokerNews Live Reporting Team on Thursday, beginning at 1200 EEST (0200 PDT) for all the action as it happens.
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