Day 1a is Trodding Along

On Day 1A, level nine has been reached with blinds of 15,000/30,000 and the screens show 163 out of 338 players remaining, the field has already been cut down in more than half. Among the current big stacks are Christopher Brammer (6.1 million), Laszlo Bujtas (up to 5.2 million on second bullet), Juan Pardo Dominguez (5.0 million), Dennis Wilke (3.7 million), Arsenii Karmatckii (3.3 million), partypoker sponsored pro Johnny Lodden (3.1 million) and Frank Romanello (2.9 million).

Team partypoker is further represented by Dzmitry Urbanovich, Joao Simao (2.15 million), Kristen Bicknell (2.6 million), Renato Nomura and Luiza Simao (450,000). Urbanovich boosted his stack to 1.3 million without showdown after he tangled in a pot with Ryan Riess. The latter was on the button and bet the river for 150,000 into a pot of 320,000. Urbanovich called and Riess mucked to drop to 700,000.

Fellow partypoker sponsored pro Roberto Romanello was less fortunate and busted recently, along with other familiar names such as Maria Ho, Jorma Nuutinen, Espen Solaas, partypoker sponsored pro Marcel Luske, Jason Gray, Dominik Nitsche and Manig Loeser.

Szymon Wysocki joined them on the rail after his three-bet all in for 700,000 came at the wrong time. Behind Wysocki, Imad Derwiche called to force out the initial raiser and tabled . Wysocki only had and the board of failed to come to the rescue for the Pole.