Pagano, Ananev and Merzhvinskij Thriving Early On

Luca Pagano won a big pot off Maksim Nosov in a battle of the blinds and built his stack nicely, while Alexandr Merzhvinskij on another table also already added one third of a stack from another player to become an early big stack.

Furthermore, Sergei Ananev won a big pot off Pavel Kovalenko. Joining the action on the heads-up flop of , Ananev bet and Kovalenko raised it up to 4,600 on the button, which Ananev in the small blind reluctantly called. After the turn, Ananev check-called a bet worth 7,200 and checked again the rather quickly.

Kovalenko was sent into the think tank for more than three minutes without making any move, and ultimately ended up checking behind. Ananev showed and that won the pot.