On the second of two starting days of the 2017 Unibet Open Copenhagen DKr 8,250 Main Event, 236 players showed up to try and become the latest victor of an Unibet Open title. It's a jubilee edition: it's the tenth season, the fifth edition in Copenhagen and also the 40th edition of the tour itself. 65 of those hopefuls made their way to Day 2 with Estonia's Kaarel Lepik bagging the overall chip lead with 382,900.
Other notables that made their way to Day 2 include 2016 Unibet Open Malta winner Martin Soukup (276,700) and the last ever EPT winner Jasper Meijer van Putten (109,100).
The day started off with eyes on Bonno van den Hout, who eliminated Farook Ghafoor in one of the first hands with a set over set situation. Van den Hout rode his stack to the late stages of the day but eventually had to hit the rail. The same faith awaited Swedish ultra high-roller Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, Hearthstone legend Thijs "ThijsNL" Molendijk, Danish high-roller Morten Mortensen, Unibet Ambassador Ian Simpson and French Team Unibet Pro Quentin Lecomte.
It turned out to be the day of Kaarel Lepik. The Estonian had a monster hour shortly after the dinnerbreak, where he ran his stack up from 50,000 to 300,000 in no time. Lepik never looked back after that and settled for the end-of-the-day chip lead with 382,900, far more than Day 1a's top finisher Tommy Vedelfort (244,600).
A combined field of 112 hopefuls out of 404 entrants will return tomorrow at noon local time to play towards the final two tables, and possibly a final table if time allows it. 53 of the remaining players will go home with a cash prize, with the top prize set at DKr 562,300 (~€75,719). Blinds will start at 1,200/2,400 with a running ante of 400. PokerNews will provide live updates from the floor until the winner is crowned on Sunday night.
A massive clash launched Frank Meijer to one of the biggest stacks in the room. Meijer held and called on the button after a raise to 2,200 and a call.
The Dutchman flopped bottom set on a flop and saw the initial raiser bet out 4,500. The other player in front of Meijer shoved for 22,000 and Meijer shoved around 60,000. The initial better called the big shove as well, creating a massive pot of 170,000 in chips.
The initial flop better held and the other player showed . The turn and river didn't change the situation and Meijer scooped up the gigantic pot. After winning another hand, he's now at 195,000.
Dennis Holm raised to 2,600 from the cutoff, Monica Vaka called on the button, Uni Gilston called from the small blind and Hemin Darwish defended his big blind.
The flop was and Gilston and Darwish checked. Holm bet 5,000, Vaka folded and both blinds called. All players checked the on the turn.
The river was the and Gilston led out with a bet of 15,000. Darwish gave it some brief thought before making it 30,000. Holm spent two minutes in the tank before reluctantly folding his hand, which brought it back to Gilston.
After thirty seconds, Gilston clicked it back another time and made it 45,000 to go. Darwish wasn't backing down though.
"All-in!" he loudly said, a shove for 67,000 total. Gilston wasted no time in calling it off.
Uni Gilston:
Hemin Darwish:
It was a sick bluff by Darwish but Gilston wasn't about to fold the nuts. WIth Darwish' chips, the Dane skyrocketed to 160,000.
Swedish ultra high-roller Viktor Blom's foray in this tournament has ended early. Blom never found himself above the starting stack and went for it with on an flop.
His opponent called with and Blom didn't get there on the turn and river.
The five-day Unibet Open Copenhagen event got off to a surprising start with the most unlikeliest of players romping home to victory. Swedish Counter-Strike: GO star Kim PapaDrayich won €5,000.
After the match, he admitted: “I didn’t think I would beat these guys, they are much better than me. I decide to play conservative and take my time, if I was playing with friends at home I would have been much more aggressive, which would have been a mistake here.”
The win was even more impressive given this was PapaDrayich’s first appearance at a Unibet Open Battle Royale SNG but his inexperience didn’t hold him back from taking a commanding chip lead and beating Scott "Sco" McMillan - who won €3,000 - heads-
up.
“Sco has such good table presence, it’s quite intimidating, but those sunglasses hide beautiful eyes” PapaDrayich joked with his opponent as they stood side-by-side speaking to the media “I had a good chip lead and just needed to focus on my game”.
German Twitch superstar Alan "Hotted89" Widmann was the reigning champion going into the Battle Royale, but he could not defend his crown and busted in 5th place. “I put a lot of pressure on myself, not only as champion coming into this, but also because Viktor Blom has been giving me some really good advice and I didn’t want to make any stupid mistakes," Widmann said afterwards.
The Unibet Open Battle Royale has developed a friendly but competitive edge as some of the players have played multiple times together, including an SNG in King’s Casino Rozvadov last week and the Unibet Open London back in February.
Get ready for the second starting day of the 2017 Unibet Open Copenhagen DDK 8,250 Main Event. Another ten levels of sixty minutes will be played in the lively Casino Copenhagen. Players will once again get 30,000 in chips and a single shot at Unibet Open glory. Late registration will be open up until the start of level 7.
Last night, 47 out of 168 entrants survived the starting day with Tommy Vedelfort bagging the overnight chip lead with 244,600. A lot more will be taking their seats today, including the enigmatic Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, Hearthstone professional Thijs "ThijsNL" Molendijk and EPT13 Prague winner Jasper Meijer van Putten. Follow PokerNews throughout the day for updates of Day 1b of the 40th Unibet Open!
and Gilston and Darwish checked. Holm bet 5,000, Vaka folded and both blinds called. All players checked the 
on the turn.
and Gilston led out with a bet of 15,000. Darwish gave it some brief thought before making it 30,000. Holm spent two minutes in the tank before reluctantly folding his hand, which brought it back to Gilston.
on an 
flop.
and Blom didn't get there on the 
turn and 
river.
