Koster Captures the Chip Lead on Day 1a of the PokerStars Festival Hamburg Main Event
Today Day 1a of the 2017 PokerStars Festival Hamburg Main Event started at 1 p.m. local time. The excitement could be felt here in Casino Schenefeld by the players that paid €1,100 each to have a shot of leaving Hamburg on Sunday as the winner. In total 118 players coughed up that buy-in today and Rudolf Koster was the one to end on top of the chip counts with 258,000 chips.
After 12 levels of 45 minutes had been played, 37 players were allowed to bag up their chips and have some days of rest before returning on Saturday for Day 2. Second in the chip counts is fellow German, Michael Ratkowski (189,400) who had hoped he would end the day as the chip leader to then find out that Koster had beat him to that post. The Dutchman with the German name, Francois Mittertreiner bagged 188,900 which puts him in third place for now.
Other notables that have made it through to Day 2 are Kyriakos Mitsopoulos (176,800), Anders Bisgard (155,500), Igor Rybak (130,700), Angelo Benedetto (104,800), Peter Jaksland (82,400), Kai Munster (73,100), and Phong Thanh Pham (49,100) after wielding a pretty short stack all day.
As you might expect, the field mainly consisted of German players with some other nationalities mixed in. Unfortunately, not everyone could make it to the bagging stage of the tournament, some of the players that fell today include [Removed:19], Sergej Barbarez, Pavel Sytau, Tomislav Mandic, Andrey Andreev, Salvatore Camarda, Hannes Neurauter, and Said Hossein Madani. They might be back to play in Day 1d, the only flight where players who have failed to make it through Day 1a, 1b or 1c can reenter.
The 37 remaining players will return to Casino Schenefeld on November 25th 2017 at 1 p.m. local time. They will start on Level 13 which has a small blind of 1,200, a big blind of 2,400, and a running ante of 400. Tomorrow Day 1b will start at 1 p.m local time and follow the exact same structure for the day as today.
Come back to PokerNews tomorrow for all the action of another starting day.
and was called by Peter Willkom who was sat in the under-the-gun position.
for a rivered straight but he was dominated by Bisgard who had 
for a full house, tens over nines.
with a pot of about 12,000 already. Norbert Seefeldt bet 6,100 from the big blind and Angelo Benedetto was sitting in the tank from under-the-gun. After some careful consideration, he decided to make the call. 
on the flop to the 
on the turn. The player in the small blind check-called the 2,300 bet of Keles. 
on the river completed the board, now the small blind check-folded to the 5,000 bet of Keles. Keles showed 
for the turned flush and Cicek was done for today as he held 
in his hand.
and Thanat Chinphanitkit had bet 3,800 from the small blind in a pot which seemed to be substantial already. Sergej Barbarez who was seated in middle position called.
for a pair of eights but that was not sufficient to win the pot as Barbarez had 
, both Andreev and Camarda checked, Sytau bet 1,600 and they both called.
, now Camarda bet 7,200 and Sytau bolted up straight. He stared at Camarda for a bit but then decided to fold with some regret on his face.
