MILLIONS North Cyprus $5,300 Main Event
Day 1a Completed
MILLIONS North Cyprus $5,300 Main Event
Day 1a Completed
The crown jewel of the 2021 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS North Cyprus festival at the five-star Merit Crystal Cove Hotel Casino & Spa in Girne, North Cyprus is off to an excellent start.
Thanks to 281 total entries, the flagship $5,300 Main Event is nearly halfway to meeting the $3 million guarantee and may already surpass it with the second scheduled flight. After nine levels of 60 minutes each, 128 players bagged and tagged their chips for the night to get two days off.
French online casino games streamer Killian Desnos soared to a massive stack of 796,500 and put quite a distance to the nearest followers already. Seemingly involved in almost every pot, he ran up a massive pile of chips that has been unheard of on Day 1 of a major live poker event in the Merit Poker room.
Another three players increased their 100,000 starting stack more than five-fold and among them is also the 2020 WSOP Online international leg Main Event champion Stoyan Madanzhiev, who sits in third place.
Other notables in the overnight top ten include Mihai Niste, Sergio Fernandez Bernal, Dan Semenescu and [Removed:452].
Position | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds Day 2 |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Killian Desnos | France | 796,500 | 266 |
2 | Tamer Abdelzaher | Egypt | 542,000 | 181 |
3 | Stoyan Madanzhiev | Bulgaria | 535,500 | 179 |
4 | Mihai Niste | Romania | 505,000 | 168 |
5 | Philippe Jibeili Acosta | Lebanon | 479,000 | 160 |
6 | Sergio Fernandez Bernal | Spain | 478,500 | 160 |
7 | Andrii Andrieiev | Ukraine | 460,500 | 154 |
8 | Algirdas Saveikis | Lithuania | 447,500 | 149 |
9 | Dan Semenescu | Romania | 445,000 | 148 |
10 | [Removed:452] | Montenegro | 436,500 | 146 |
Two partypoker representatives entered the fray on the first of four starting days. John Duthie was caught bluffing into a full house to bust while Jeff Gross made it through with a stack of 113,500. Many other big names such as Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy, Sergio Aido, Walid Bou Habib, Alessio Isaia, Robert Heidorn, James Akenhead, and Mustafa Biz all fell on the wayside. They have another three chances on Day 1 and three levels on Day 2 to take another shot at the competition.
Desnos was spotted with a huge stack in level six as he knocked out Zorlu Er with flopped trips eights versus aces up. From there on, the Frenchman was involved in most of the action on his tables and finished a memorable day with nearly eight times the starting stack, which represents almost four times the average.
Stoyan Madanzhiev shared his table for a brief period and rose to a big stack himself when his dominating pair prevailed in a clash with Andrei Berinov. Both then parted ways when the table broke and added to their piles of chips. In the final three levels of the night, Desnos remained undisputed at the top of the leaderboard despite several smaller and medium-sized setbacks.
Day 1b is scheduled to take place on Thursday, September 23 and will feature nine levels of 60 minutes each. The following day, two flights with reduced level durations of 45 minutes and 25 minutes each await. All survivors then combine to one field with three further levels of late registration and re-entries available on Day 2.
The PokerNews live reporting team will provide exclusive updates from the event until a champion has been crowned. As of Day 2, the action will also be streamed on the partypoker Twitch and YouTube channels as well.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
![]() |
796,500
36,500
|
36,500 |
|
||
![]() |
542,000
392,000
|
392,000 |
![]() |
535,500
20,500
|
20,500 |
|
||
![]() |
505,000
30,000
|
30,000 |
|
479,000
479,000
|
479,000 |
![]() |
478,500
28,500
|
28,500 |
![]() |
460,500
85,500
|
85,500 |
![]() |
447,500
7,500
|
7,500 |
![]() |
445,000
45,000
|
45,000 |
|
436,500
186,500
|
186,500 |
![]() |
425,500
105,500
|
105,500 |
![]() |
420,000
420,000
|
420,000 |
|
400,000
20,000
|
20,000 |
![]() |
395,500
125,500
|
125,500 |
![]() |
395,500
295,500
|
295,500 |
![]() |
393,000
278,000
|
278,000 |
![]() |
387,500
202,500
|
202,500 |
|
379,500
379,500
|
379,500 |
![]() |
379,000
379,000
|
379,000 |
![]() |
367,000
87,000
|
87,000 |
![]() |
366,000
246,000
|
246,000 |
![]() |
343,500
343,500
|
343,500 |
![]() |
333,500
138,500
|
138,500 |
|
||
|
332,500
332,500
|
332,500 |
![]() |
315,000
160,000
|
160,000 |
The first of four starting days has completed with what appears to be 127 players remaining. Assorted counts and a recap of today's action are to follow.
At the very end, Koray Korkmaz got it in after the flop with the
and had the second nut flush draw. However, Algirdas Saveikis had that crushed with
and had nothing to fear on the
turn and
river. The whole table was somewhat stunned as to what had unfolded and they were due to play one more hand.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
![]() |
440,000
440,000
|
440,000 |
![]() |
Busted |
Only around 130 players remain and they will play another four hands for tonight.
Just before the final hands of the night were announced, Arunas Sapitavicius got it in with the and was flipping. Daniyar Aubakirov had the ace-king and the
board kept the Lithuanian in contention.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
![]() |
170,000
30,000
|
30,000 |
![]() |
140,000
-80,000
|
-80,000 |
Marat Shafigullin raised from early position and Killian Desnos three-bet big to 50,000. The Russian then jammed and Desnos asked for a count. Once it was deemed to be for more than 200,000, Desnos shook his head and mucked the face up. Shafigullin revealed one card that was near the muck already and that happened to be the
.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
![]() |
760,000 | |
|
||
![]() |
270,000
198,000
|
198,000 |
Christian Dressler raised it up from late position and was called only by Andrii Andrieiev in the big blind. The duo headed to the flop on which Andrieiev checked. Dressler now made it 12,000 to go and received a call.
What followed was the on the turn and Andrieiev checked once more, triggering the jam by Dressler. It was for around 34,000 and Andrieiev folded without asking for an exact count.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
![]() |
375,000
-25,000
|
-25,000 |
![]() |
70,000 |