WSOPE MONSTER STACK: Magalashvili Among the Leaders, Moshe and Clinkscales in Big Argument

Michael Magalashvili

Another day at King's Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic has come to an end as Day 1B of Event #5: €1,100 MONSTER STACK No-Limit Hold'em has wrapped up. The second of three flights saw 204 players take to the felt with just 56 moving on to Day 2.

A familiar is among the leaders, and it's no surprise that Michael Magalashvili (lead photo) from Israel has heaps of chips. So far at the 2018 WSOPE, it has been the year of Israel as they have been cleaning up on the poker tables. The first two events were won by players from Israel and Magalashvili made the final table in Event #3: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed. A successful Day 1B saw him throw 325,000 chips into the bag which was good enough for the second largest stack of the day. Magalashvili has made the King's Casino his home in the past couple of years with all of his tournament cashes coming in the same place.

The only player to bag up a bigger stack than Magalashvili was Asher Assis who ran up a stack of 349,000. Assis was hovering around the 200,000 chip mark for the latter half of the day, but a double elimination in the last hand of the night saw his chip stack soar to the top. Daniel Smiljkovic rounds out the top three counts with an equally impressive 289,000 chips.

PositionPlayerCountryChip Count
1Asher AssisIsrael349,000
2Michael MagalashviliIsrael325,000
3Daniel SmiljkovicGermany289,000
4Markus StegerAustria261,500
5Timur MargolinIsrael260,000

Some other familiar faces moving on to Day 2 include Timur Margolin (260,000), Anson Tsang (205,000), Fahredin Mustafov (184,000), Stoyan Obreshkov (154,000), Bertrand Grospellier (79,500), Anthony Zinno (73,500), and Maria Lampropulos (56,500). Margolin, Grospellier, and Zinno are the only players to join Day 1A participant, Chris Ferguson, as WSOP bracelet winners moving on to Day 2.

Bertrand Grospellier
Bertrand Grospellier

The day began at 3:00 PM with players filtering into the Poker Arena and the numbers were quickly escalating above the 100-mark. Even with only one entry per flight, it didn't stop the chips from flying early as Viacheslav Ivanov was eliminated after just four minutes. The number of entries continued to grow over the course of 12 levels until late registration finally closed with 204 total entries.

At one point, a lot of commotion occurred at Table 99, and the brunt of it was between Rex Clinkscales and Asi Moshe. Moshe and Rafi Elharar recently played a pot with each other and Clinkscales suggested that Moshe and Elharar were colluding. He asked the floorman to keep an eye on the table.

Moshe didn't take the accusation lightly. The two started to get into an argument with curse words just rolling off their tongues. Clinkscales took it as far as threatening Moshe and wanting to fight outside. The floorman separated both players and pulled them away from the table. The banter continued off the table, and the tournament director was eventually called over to defuse the situation. Once cooler heads prevailed, Moshe was allowed to return to his seat while Clinkscales was given a round penalty.

Rex Clinkscales
Rex Clinkscales

Both Moshe and Clinkscales busted before the end of the day. They were far from the only ones to go bust. Jeff Madsen hit the exit before the first break for the second day in a row while Shaun Deeb took the opposite approach by registering in the 11th level of the day but was eliminated just three hands in. Some other notables to keep an eye out for tomorrow include Romain Lewis, Dutch Boyd, Rex Clinkscales, Allen Kessler, Asi Moshe, Cord Garcia, Manig Loeser, Martin Kabrhel and Viliyan Petleshkov.

2018 WSOPE Monster Stack Schedule

DayDateStarting TimeLate RegEntriesSurvivorsFurther Information
1AThursday, October 18th15:00~00:2514830Play 14 levels of 40 minutes
1BFriday, October 19th15:00~00:2520456Play 14 levels of 40 minutes
1CSaturday, October 20th15:00~00:25TBATBAPlay 14 levels of 40 minutes
2Sunday, October 21st14:00-TBATBALevel duration increases to 60 minutes
3Monday, October 22ndTBD-TBATBAPlay down to a champion

The action will once again resume today, Saturday, at 3:00 PM local time and this will be the last starting flight of Event #5. Late registration will remain open until the beginning of level 13 which will be approximately 12:25 AM. The PokerNews live reporting team will be on site to bring you all of the live updates from the tournament floor, so be sure not to miss any of the World Series of Poker Europe.

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  • A lot of action on Day 1B of the WSOPE MONSTER STACK.

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