Fahredin Mustafov Bursts the Bubble to Seize Day 1a Chip Lead in $25,500 Main Event

An action-packed opening flight of the $25,500 Main Event has come to an end inside the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa, on a day that saw the best of the fireworks save themselves for the last few hands of the night.

As expected, the marquee event of the Onyx High Roller Series attracted a star-studded field, thanks in part to its $5,000,000 guaranteed prize pool. By the time late registration closed on the first of three starting flights, 113 players had come through the doors and taken their seats.

With each starting flight ending once just 15 per cent of the field remained, the bubble bursting also signalled the end of the day's play. In this flight, that meant just 17 players were guaranteed to make it through to Day 2, and when those who survived bagged their chips, they were also guaranteed a place in the money.

Leading the way into Day 2, Fahredin Mustafov knows exactly what it takes to find success in this event. Mustafov took down the $25,750 Onyx SHRS Main Event in 2025 for $1,300,000, and almost exactly twelve months later, he picked up where he left off.

A constant presence near the top of the leaderboard throughout the day, Mustafov put the cherry on top of a good day's work by bursting the bubble, with the chips won in that hand taking his stack to 3,555,000, propelling him to the top of the leaderboard.

Closest behind the chip leader, Aliaksandr Shylko bagged 2,920,000, while Ali Al-Kubasi completed the top three with 2,640,000.

Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts

Rank	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	Fahredin Mustafov	Bulgaria	3,555,000	89
2	Aliaksandr Shylko	Belarus	2,920,000	73
3	Ali Al-Kubasi	Iraq	2,640,000	66
4	Danilo Velasevic	Serbia	2,330,000	58
5	Manuel Fritz	Austria	1,610,000	40
6	Daniel Rezaei	Austria	1,410,000	35
7	Raoul Kanme	Netherlands	1,325,000	33
8	Aleksei Gortikov	Russian Federation	1,080,000	27
9	Zorlu Er	Turkey	1,030,000	26
10	Sondre Stormyr	Norway	745,000	19

Only slightly behind the chip leaders, Manuel Fritz will return with 1,610,000. The Austrian high-roller regular was one of three players at risk of elimination on the bubble, but not content with just surviving, he used the momentum to finish the day with a top-five stack to take into Day 2.

Elsewhere in the counts, Daniel Rezaei (1,410,000), Raoul Kanme (1,325,000), Arsenii Karmatckii (725,000), and Weiran Pu (665,000) are also among those who successfully punched their tickets to Day 2.

It was a different story for several well-known names, with Sergio Aido, Artur Martirosian, Manig Loeser, Eelis Parssinen, Aleksejs Ponakovs, Oliver Weis and Alex Kulev among those unable to make it through the opening flight. They will now have to regroup and try again in one of the remaining Day 1 flights.

Bubble Chaos

With the tournament down to its final three tables and sitting on the stone bubble, an almost unheard-of sequence of events unfolded: a player was at risk of elimination on all three tables at the same time.

Remarkably, all three survived.

While Daniel Koloszar and Zorlu Er got their money in good, Fritz had to survive the hard way. As the last of the three all-ins to reach showdown, with his two fellow bubble players already safely surviving, the Austrian had seemingly the entire room sweating the action. He was behind preflop, on the flop and still on the turn, but spiked the river to complete the unlikely escape and would go on to bag one of the biggest stacks of the day.

Then, just a couple of hands later, Julian Pineda Lozano was left with the unenviable distinction of bursting the bubble. In a four-bet pot, Lozano moved all in preflop but ran straight into the pocket aces of the soon-to-be chip leader, Mustafov. The board offered no help, leaving Lozano to watch as the remaining 17 players bagged their chips and advanced to Day 2.

Fortunately for Lozano and all those who failed to make it through, two more starting flights remain. Day 1c gets underway at 1 p.m. local time tomorrow, August 12, before the turbo Day 1d flight takes place at 9 p.m., with levels shortened to 20 minutes.

Unlimited reentries are permitted for both flights, giving those who fell short today two more opportunities to try and advance to Day 2.