2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas

The 2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas $25,750 High Roller started off slow with just two tables, but with a single re-entry options and late registration open all day, that number swelled. After 10 one-hour levels of play, the field had grown to 115 unique entrants who accounted for 36 re-entries to bring the total field up to 151 entries. It could go up even more as registration will remain open up until the start of Day 2.

At the end of the night, Nick Petrangelo bagged the biggest stack among the approximately 75 survivors with 290,600, though several other players were hot on his heels including Sam Greenwood (276,800), Byron Kaverman (272,000), Oleksii Khoroshenin (264,000), and Sergio Aido (250,700).

Petrangelo is a regular on the high roller circuit and has total live earnings of nearly $6 million. That includes $1,015,335 for finishing second in the 2015 WPT Alpha8 Bellagio High Roller, taking third in the EPT12 Barcelona €10,000 High Roller for $669,12, and winning the EPT13 Barcelona €10,000 High Roller for $464,154. Petrangelo also finished sixth in this very event two years ago, good for $301,500.

Others who advanced are former NFL player Richard Seymour (165,000), Daniel Colman (100,400), Bryn Kenney (66,8000), Phil “The Unabomber” Laak (54,900), and Bernard Lee (27,200). They will be joined by Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (140,300), Daniel Negreanu (104,600), Liv Boeree (43,000), Andre Akkari (40,600), and Jake Cody (32,800).

On the flip side, not everyone was as fortunate. Among those to fall twice on Day 1, meaning they don’t have a re-entry option to use tomorrow, were 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Joe McKeehen, the UK wunderkind Charlie Carrel, 2016 Aussie Millions champ Chance Kornuth, and last year’s runner-up Sean Winter.

Shortly after re-entering the tournament, Winter found himself on the bad end of a cooler. He had flopped trip queens with a king kicker, but Khoroshenin had flopped threes full of queens. The chips went in, and Winter failed to get there. As for Carrel, he busted after getting his short stack in with ace-four and falling to the pocket eights of Greenwood.

Day 2 will kick off at Noon local time on Friday. Once again PokerNews will bring you updates straight from the tournament floor, so be sure to check back then. While you wait, check out this video of Seymour talking about joining Twitter, making a bet with Negreanu, and more.

Igor Kurganov had been eliminated, that was the headline. All-in with against Tim Adams' and no luck on the board. Goodnight, Igor. Except for Kurganov, whose girlfriend Liv Boeree claimed "hasn't stopped talking for six days!", a few more words were called for. Words such as 'Where can I buy back in?'.

Kurganov's second entry came with the clock paused just seconds later, and six more hands announced. On the fourth of those hands, poker pandemonium broke out.

Kurganov was sat to the direct right of good friend Mustapha Kanit, who had plenty of chips, around 70,000 and easily enough to bust his pal. When Kurganov moved all-in with and Kanit called with , the pair of them were up and down like a pair of puppets. They were racing not just for a 97,000 pot, but bragging rights too.

The flop of saw Kurganov on his feet, with an 'Eh!' to his friend Kanit. However, the on the turn sent Kanit into raptures.

"Eh!" he cried jubilantly. Kurganov covered his friends eyes from the river card.....of the !

"Ehhhh!" yelled Kurganov, as his hand improved to a full house. He flipped Kanit's cap from his friends head and wore it triumphantly like a crown.

"I deserve to wear this now. You are a loser. Mathematically, you've only had one buy-in yes? - OK - Mathematically, you should shove any two next hand."

As it happened, Kanit did so, piling his remaining 17,500 into the middle and being snap-called by Anthony Zinno. Zinno had , but Kanit was racing again, holding the almost-identical-to-his-last-hand .

The flop of offered little hope. The turn of didn't improve the actual odds dramatically. But the on the river gave Kanit a runner-runner straight and he jumped back up, took back his hat and cried 'Who's the boss? Who's the boss?!"

To be fair to Kurganov and Kanit, and with deference to the everlasting good humour of Zinno, all of it happened with riotous sense of good humour and the trio were all happy to progress to the next day. Kurganov, Kanit, Zinno and of course Boeree and other friends by now on the rail who were watching the drama unfold all burst into peals of laughter at the conclusion the two hilarious hands of poker.

With a board reading , 2016 PCA champ Mike Watson got his last 14,800 all in and was at risk against Bernard Lee.

Watson:
Lee:

Watson was ahead with a pair of kings, but Lee was drawing to both an ace and hearts. The dealer burned one last time and put out the . Lee missed and Watson doubled through.

Both PokerStars Team Pros Jake Cody and Liv Boeree have struggled at points during this $25,000 High Roller, with the run of the cards more than anything. But there's building momentum behind each British superstar and with one level to go anything could happen.

Jake Cody doubled up when he had pocket queens in the blinds and doubled up, holding against to bounce from ten big blinds to just over 20 big blinds.

Liv Boeree wasn't all-in, but won an interesting hand against Justin Bonomo. Boeree raised under the gun pre-flop to 2,600 and only Bonomo called from the big blind. The flop of saw Boeree continue for 2,200, but she was raised to 7,000 by Bonomo. Boeree called, and both players checked the turn. The river of saw Bonomo check to Boeree who made it 8,000 and Bonomo folded, meaning Boeree won without a showdown - valuable currency in mystery to add to the chips at this stage of the night.

Bryn Kenney and Pierre Neuville each put in 6,600 preflop and saw a flop of , which they both checked. After the dealer burned and turned the , Neuville check-called a bet of 10,200 and then checked for a third time on the river.

Kenney bet 20,000, leaving himself just 29,000 behind, and Neuville snap-raised all in for right around 50,000. Kenney seemed frustrated, shook his head, and folded his cards.