More than 4,000 miles separate Alex Livingston’s home in Canada from King’s Resort in Rozvadov, but not nearly the same distance keeps Livingston from the chip lead after Day 1 of the €10,000 Diamond High Roller at the Grand Big Wrap festival.
Livingston busted Michael Rohde with a flopped set of fives that turned into a full house on the river on his way to bagging up 414,000 and comfortably in the top 10 among the 80 surviving players from a starting field of 164. Hossein Ensan, the 2019 WSOP champion who shared that final table with Livingston, is also in the top-10 with 380,000 after building up his stack on his second bullet of the day.
They and the rest of the field are looking up at Russian Viacheslav Osipov, who finished the day with a massive stack of 565,000. Mahmoud Khatib is in second place with 452,000, while Tom-Aksel Bedell (430,000), Eelis Parssinen (334,000), and Gergo Nagy (304,000) are also big stacks. Joni Jouhkimainen jumped right into this tournament after winning the 5K PLO Master tournament and picked up where he left off, finishing with 331,000.
Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Viacheslav Osipov | Russia | 565,000 | 188 |
| 2 | Mahmoud Khatib | Germany | 452,000 | 151 |
| 3 | Tom-Aksel Bedell | Norway | 430,000 | 143 |
| 4 | Petr Svoboda | Czech Republic | 429,500 | 143 |
| 5 | Sebahattin Degermenci | Germany | 428,000 | 143 |
| 6 | Alex Livingston | Canada | 414,000 | 138 |
| 7 | Daniel Smuskovics | Germany | 400,000 | 133 |
| 8 | Bernd Gleissner | Germany | 395,500 | 132 |
| 9 | Hossein Ensan | Germany | 380,000 | 127 |
| 10 | Samuli Sipila | Finland | 345,000 | 115 |
Players who couldn’t survive the day included King’s Resort owner Leon Tsoukernik, Tony G, Jonas Kronwitter, Quan Zhou, and Damjan Radanov, who busted three times during the day including on a brutal river suckout against Daniel Smuskovics on the last level. They and any other aspiring hopefuls will have to try again tomorrow if they want to grab a part of the €2,000,000 guaranteed prize pool.
Day 2 begins tomorrow at 3 p.m. local time. Late registration remains open until the end of Level 11, with players allowed unlimited reentries. The plan is to play down to a winner, but with 80 players still remaining and the average stack nearly 70 big blinds, it is sure to be a long, grueling road to crowning a champion.
PokerNews will be back following all the action tomorrow until only one player is left standing from this star-studded field.
