Griffin Benger Ends the Day as One of the Bigger Stacks in the Room
Day 1b of the 2016 Unibet Open Malta Main Event saw another 145 players flock to the brand new tournament room of Casino Malta in the InterContinental Hotel. Once again 10 levels of play were on the schedule.
Things got off to a quiet start, with most of the tables silently playing cards without much uproar or excitement. That was except for Table 2, where Rene Kuhlman and Hormiz Kamil blasted away at each other with friendly, but loud, banter. It was Team Holland versus Team Sweden, and for most of the day the two and their table mates battled it out with a lot of laughs.
Table 2 was the sole table with an above-average audio level, before Global Poker League commentators Griffin Benger and Sam Grafton entered the room. The two continued the fun and games they've showcased on the GPL live streams the past few weeks.
The rivalry started with Grafton declining Benger a swap, and the two took jabs at each other via twitter all day. Grafton big timing his pall Benger on the swap must have motivated the latter to do well. Benger played just about every other hand and won most of them. Benger gathered a sizable stack early on, while Grafton was diminished to the role of short stack. Grafton eventually busted in the last level of the day when he pushed his ace-nine into ace-jack and kings. Benger, in the meantime, lead the tournament with a stack of 180,000. He ended the day with 174,200, not quite leading anymore, but still one of the bigger stacks in the room.
Both Kuhlman and Kamil busted in the tail end of the day, with Kuhlman losing kings to ace-jack and Kamil losing ace-queen to Benger's flush draw with five-three.
Forty-three players survived Day 1b and will return on Saturday for Day 2 of the Unibet Open at 12 p.m. local time. Combined with the 50 players that survived Day 1a, a total of 93 return to battle it out for that first-place prize of €65,000. Thirty-six players will get into the money, a stage of the tournament that should be reached halfway through Day 2. In fact, the goal is to play to a final table on the penultimate day.
PokerNews.com will again be on site for coverage of all the action, so stay tuned.
| Table | Seat | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 1 | Sacha Stankovic | 30,900 |
| 10 | 2 | Romain Nardin | 174,200 |
| 10 | 3 | Peter Harkes | 60,100 |
| 10 | 4 | Hannu Seppala | 73,600 |
| 10 | 6 | Clint Sammut | 165,000 |
| 10 | 7 | Mateusz Moolhuizen | 156,800 |
| 10 | 8 | Charlo Azzopardi | 244,200 |
| 10 | 9 | Quentin Lecomte | 56,700 |
| 11 | 1 | Sander Van Wesemael | 105,100 |
| 11 | 2 | Joseph Said | 76,500 |
| 11 | 3 | Orjahn Winther | 143,400 |
| 11 | 4 | Michal Danka | 37,000 |
| 11 | 5 | Tomasz Kozub | 45,100 |
| 11 | 6 | Tim Van Meene | 18,800 |
| 11 | 7 | Sami Pulliainen | 148,300 |
| 11 | 9 | Simon Griffin | 47,900 |
| 12 | 1 | Nicolay Langfeldt | 163,800 |
| 12 | 2 | Sami Skold | 139,200 |
| 12 | 3 | Arne Coulier | 123,300 |
| 12 | 4 | Przemyslaw Wolowiec | 94,800 |
| 12 | 5 | Vitalii Belyaev | 91,300 |
| 12 | 6 | Jonas Gustafsson | 127,500 |
| 12 | 7 | Sandra Flygare | 29,700 |
| 12 | 8 | Jonathan Bradley | 9,000 |
| 12 | 9 | Erik Georg Albinsson | 51,700 |
| 13 | 1 | Mikko Raissnen | 34,100 |
| 13 | 2 | Daniel Chutrov | 51,700 |
| 13 | 3 | Tomas Soderstrom | 45,400 |
| 13 | 4 | Jari Suuronen | 64,800 |
| 13 | 5 | Leandre Omeir | 35,400 |
| 13 | 6 | Kristi Kirs | 106,000 |
| 13 | 7 | Dzmitry Stukach | 50,000 |
| 13 | 8 | Dawid Paczka | 107,800 |
| 13 | 9 | Bas De Laat | 96,000 |
| 14 | 1 | Johan Goslings | 41,400 |
| 14 | 2 | Mads Junker | 63,900 |
| 14 | 3 | Gabor Bank | 78,500 |
| 14 | 4 | Robertas Zebrauskis | 46,700 |
| 14 | 5 | Rafal Zgadzaj | 114,500 |
| 14 | 6 | Glenn Marcher | 80,800 |
| 14 | 7 | Jan Lovgren | 122,400 |
| 14 | 8 | Dario Marinelli | 114,400 |
| 14 | 9 | Griffin Benger | 174,300 |
| 15 | 1 | Rasmus Tarbensen | 97,300 |
| 15 | 2 | Stichel Van Der Kristoff | 39,300 |
| 15 | 3 | Dejan Vogrin | 204,200 |
| 15 | 4 | Margo Solnik | 55,200 |
| 15 | 5 | Tuukka Meklin | 163,800 |
| 15 | 6 | Niko Koop | 111,400 |
| 15 | 7 | Jeroen Buls | 61,300 |
| 15 | 8 | Christian Ostfelt | 151,400 |
| 15 | 9 | Toni Ojala | 20,700 |
| 16 | 1 | Nicolas Storm | 105,200 |
| 16 | 2 | Alexander Van Der Werf | 22,000 |
| 16 | 3 | Boris Kuzmanovic | 12,100 |
| 16 | 4 | Jaroslaw Barglik | 60,700 |
| 16 | 5 | Martin Soukup | 42,200 |
| 16 | 6 | Thomas Wiesen | 131,100 |
| 16 | 7 | Piotr Marzejon | 50,700 |
| 16 | 8 | Daniel Thaller | 139,400 |
| 16 | 9 | Erik Scheidt | 292,200 |
| 17 | 1 | Mariusz Czarnojan | 82,400 |
| 17 | 2 | Kristoffer Skipper Rasmussen | 95,000 |
| 17 | 3 | Kwok Wing Tang | 162,900 |
| 17 | 4 | Toralf Holmestrand | 93,100 |
| 17 | 5 | Mathias Christensen | 221,200 |
| 17 | 6 | Miroslav Hrivnak | 47,400 |
| 17 | 7 | Pekka Ikonen | 86,800 |
| 17 | 9 | Rosi Massimiliano | 63,600 |
| 18 | 1 | Julien Aretuse | 54,600 |
| 18 | 2 | Tomislav Brnas | 80,800 |
| 18 | 3 | Auke Attema | 63,900 |
| 18 | 5 | Herman Van Den Meerendonk | 77,700 |
| 18 | 6 | Krzysztof Dembek | 55,000 |
| 18 | 7 | Piotr Zawadzki | 68,100 |
| 18 | 8 | Jorma Vuoksenmaa | 25,900 |
| 18 | 9 | Tomasz Kotlowski | 174,500 |
| 19 | 1 | Stefan Mattsson | 213,800 |
| 19 | 2 | Mark Taylor | 65,000 |
| 19 | 3 | [Removed:158] | 112,800 |
| 19 | 4 | Eetu Vehvilainen | 73,100 |
| 19 | 5 | Martin Wendt | 79,800 |
| 19 | 6 | John Forst | 93,100 |
| 19 | 7 | Irena Macesovic | 232,800 |
| 19 | 8 | Cirtog Cristian | 73,500 |
| 20 | 1 | Emil Westerberg | 70,900 |
| 20 | 2 | Kristof Segers | 101,300 |
| 20 | 3 | Lauri Laanvee | 47,500 |
| 20 | 4 | Daniel Chevalier | 104,800 |
| 20 | 5 | Christopher Kiefert | 62,300 |
| 20 | 7 | Ivan Neytchev | 147,200 |
| 20 | 8 | Pierre Chambon | 87,800 |
| 20 | 9 | Cornelis De Jong | 91,100 |
and Grafton made his exit. Stukach in the meantime, just about tripled up.
and Gustafsson checked. Bukovsky made a bet of 5,000 with about 33,000 behind. Gustafsson slid forward a big stack of yellow 5,000-chips. Bukovsky tanked for about two minutes and called.
on the turn hurt Bukovsky and the 
on the river didn't change a thing anymore. "Unlucky bro" Sam Grafton said. Exit for Bukovsky.
on the turn was checked by both. The 
.
completed the board and Tachajian checked again. Ostfelt bet 10,500 with 19,000 behind and Proust instantly folded. Tachajian thought about it for a bit longer, but folded as well in the end.
which resulted in a quick muck from Kozub.
hit the turn and Rossi glanced at his stack, picked up his last three chips, and pushed all in for 10,025 total. Grafton leaned back, and tossed in some chips to make the call.
on the river was a blank and Rossi made his exit.
