Trickett Emerges as Day 1b Chip Leader
On Saturday, the 2012 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Sanremo Main Event continued with Day 1b action as 477 players packed the Casino Sanremo for eight 75-minute levels of play. By the end of that time, approximately 270 remained with Sam Trickett finishing as the chip leader.
Trickett got his stack of 178,000 thanks in large part to picking up aces when another big stack held kings; what’s more, the Brit won a big pot himself a short time later with kings. Trickett’s big stack surpassed that of Day 1a chip leader Erion Islamay (162,300), which makes him the overall chip leader headed into Day 2.
Combined with Day 1a’s 320 runners, the huge Day 1b turnout brought the total field size up to 797 players—which represented 52 countries—and created a prize pool of €3,865,450. That will be distributed to the top 120 players with €800,000 going to the eventual winner.
The day got off to a quick start with the first elimination coming just 11 minutes into play. It happened when Andrii Nadieliaiev and Andrey Zaichenko each put in 4,750 preflop and saw a flop of 
. Zaichenko bet 5,000, Nadieliaiev called, and the dealer burned and turned the 
. Zaichenko bet again, this time 6,000, and again Nadieliaiev called. When the 
peeled off on the river, Zaichenko moved all in for his last 14,300 and Nadieliaiev snap-called. Zaichenko revealed 
, but it was no good against the 
of Nadieliaiev. Interestingly, Day 1a's first elimination came from an aces-versus-kings hand, though those players got it all in preflop.
The Russian may have been the first, but he wasn’t the last. McLean Karr, Faraz Jaka, Davidi Kitai, Ben Hamnett, Antonio Esfandiari, John Duthie, Aku Joentausta, Tobias Reinkemeier, Toby Lewis, Ronny Kaiser, Jonthan Aguiar, Chance Kornuth and the defending champ, Andrey Pateychuk.
Defending champ busted. Got it in with J9dd on T876 against Q9o in muptipot for over then 100k. River J and out :( #goodbyebrOctober 06 2012Follow
Likewise, Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Dario Minieri, Massimiliano Martinez, Richard Toth, Lex Veldhuis, Martin Staszko, Christophe De Meulder, Vanessa Rousso, Daniel Negreanu, Max Lykov, Alex Kravchenko, Martin Hruby and Sandra Naujoks all hit the rail throughout the day.
Some PokerStars Team Pros who will be returning on Day 2 are Chris Moneymaker, Pius Heinz, Andre Akkari, Angel Guillen, and Johnny Lodden, just to name a few. They’ll be joined by other recognizable names including Justin Bonomo, Chris Brammer, Shaun Deeb, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Isaac Haxton and Steve O’Dwyer. In addition, former EPT Sanremo champs Liv Boeree (Season 6) and Rupert Elder (Season 7) will both continue their quest for a second title.
Day 2 will commence at 1400 CET (0800 ET) and PokerNews will be right back on the floor providing all the live updates. Be sure to check back then for all the latest and greatest action from Sanremo.