Day 1a of the Main Event Concludes With Aleksandr Denisov Bagging the Resounding Chip Lead
After ten levels of play at Casino Sochi, 251 runners were reduced to 95 and it was Aleksandr Denisov's day without question. Denisov progressed to Day 2 with 498,600 chips, almost 150,000 more than his closest rival, Illia Korobkin (352,700). Roman Gadzhiev (240,000) finished in third, Igor Grytsak (197,500) in fourth and Artem Vezhenkov (161,000) was the fifth biggest stack at the end of the night.
Denis stormed through the day, dominating from Level 6 and eliminating numerous opponents in the process. By the time players went on their last break of the day, Denisov was already up to 200,000, a stack worthy of a top-five finish when the bell rang on the day's play. A key hand (probably the key hand in fact) involved Jiayu Ruan. Denisov cold-four bet preflop with ace-king in the hole and Ruan, who was the three-better, called. The board came king-high and Denisov was able to extract three streets of value. He didn't look back from there and ran it up to the aforementioned lead.
Denisov wasn't the only big name to take to the felt today. Team PokerStars and PSPC Champion Pro Ramon Colillas took 134,000 through. Team PokerStars Pro Online Mikhail Shalamov also survived, bagging 62,100. Anatoliy Zyrin (92,500), Artur Martirosyan (84,300), Dmitry Yurasov (84,200), Wenling Gao (80,900), Vitaliy Avanesyan (55,000), Kiryl Radzivonau (53,000), Yaniv Peretz (49,100) and Tomas Macnamara (18,700) were just some of the big names to make it through.
It wasn't good news for everyone, with some familiar faces failing to progress. Among the casualties were Pete Chen, Denys Shafikov, Anton Yakuba, Oleg Titov, Daniil Kiselev, and Viktor Kudinov. We may not have seen the last of any of them as there are still starting flights 1b and 1c to come tomorrow, with a single re-entry available in both.
Day 1b starts at midday on Monday 25th March and will feature exactly the same structure as today, with ten 60-minute levels on the clock. Day 1c kicks off at 7pm and will have ten 30-minute levels. All players who bag will secure themselves a place in Day 2 on Tuesday 26th March.
As always, PokerNews will provide coverage of all the action from the Main Event and throughout the EPT Sochi Festival.
and continued for 30,000, which Ruan flat called. 
and Denisov check-called another 30,000. The final card out was a 
and Denisov check-called once more, this time for 65,000. He tabled ace-king for top pair, top kicker and Ruan sent his cards into the muck. Denisov is the current chip leader after that pot and Ruan is left short.
board. Zyrin folded the flop and Gordienko passed on the turn, adding more to Chen's stack.
on show. Denisov opted to bet-call Lamb's reraise. Taking them to the turn.
in the hole against Denisov's 
. Lamb was looking for a king, a deuce or an eight but instead the river came the 
and Denisov took it with two pair. Lamb is left very short, whilst Denisov has one of the biggest stacks in the room now.
flop it went check-check. The same happened on the 
river Colillas opted to lead, putting 9,000 over the line. Oganyan had another look at his cards before folding and Colillas took the pot.
board, Zyrin got the double. He is still relatively short-stacked but it is a step in the right direction.