Lambros Vrakas Leads After WSOPC Main Event Day 1a
Four months since the World Series of Poker’s International Circuit graced the doors of the largest cardroom in Europe, it’s back and the festival has almost reached its conclusion with the €1,650 Main Event getting underway today.
It was the first of two starting flights, with players allowed up to one re-entry per flight. Over the course of the day several players exercised that option, with Marek Tatar, Catalin Pop and Soenke Jahn among them.
With the festival’s High Roller reaching a conclusion today, the likes of Pierre Neuville, Martin Kabrhel, Vojtech Ruzicka, Dzmitry Urbanovich and Aleksandar Tomovic were all in action away from the Main Event. Those players are expected to enter tomorrow, but there were a whole host of other names in the Main Event field.
Brits Sam Grafton and Kuljinder Sidhu showed their faces, along with Said El Yousfi, who picked up four second-place finishes at last month’s Marrakech Poker Open including a second place in the High Roller also joined the field, along with Jerome Sgorrano who finished fifth in that event.
At the end of the day’s 12 levels, it was Lambros Vrakas who topped the chip counts with 249,500. He handed a chunk of his chips over to the aforementioned Said El Yousfi in level one when his open-ended Royal Flush draw didn’t get there against the trip kings of El Yousfi, but since then he continued to move up the counts.
Later Vrakas would eliminate former EPT Barcelona champion Sebastian Malec in a nasty set over set situation, before pushing his chips around to gain the maximum from top pair against Andreas Puhl.
A whole host of other big stacks litter the field including Grzegorz Idziak (207,700), Marcia Chemielewski (183,700) Michal Jurcenko (161,100) Gennady Kallin (153,100), and they will return on Sunday for Day 2 as part of the 87 Day 1a survivors. Notables in that field include Sam Grafton (20,100), Kuljinder Sidhu (95,400) and Ismael Bojang (49,600).
A full chip count of all players advancing to Day 2 will be published before the start of Day 1b.
Day 1b starts tomorrow (Saturday) at 14.00 local time, with 12 levels scheduled. Stay tuned to PokerNews for all the live updates.