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

Tags: Griffin Benger Rene Kuhlman Sam Grafton