2015 Champion Calamusa Advances to Winamax Poker Open Main Event Day 2
It was a tough day for the Winamax Team Pros in the Winamax Poker Open Main Event here in Dublin, with Pierre Calamusa the only player already guaranteed of a place in Day 2.
A total of 360 players entered on Day 1a, with just 65 of them bagging. Calamusa said he was happy to be one of them.
"I'm very happy," said Calamusa. "Because I don't have to come back tomorrow! I can have a day off and really enjoy Dublin. I can visit the town, it is really important to me that I get to discover new cities and cultures. I'm happy to have 24 hours free."
This isn't his first time in Dublin, but Calamusa explained that he hadn't always had the free time to be able to explore.
"Well one year I won and the other few years I couldn't get past Day 1, so I was playing every day so I didn't have much time to discover Dublin. So tomorrow I will do some sightseeing and that will be great.
"It's important to travel for poker but also important that you get to discover new things!"
With Ivan Deyra, Adrien Delmas and Aladin Reskallah all in High Roller action, the latter of which making it to the final table, it was up to Davidi Kitai, Adrian Mateos and Calamusa to put in good performances here on Day 1a.
However, the Frenchman was the last man standing at the end of the night, with the Belgian Triple Crown winner and Spanish three-time bracelet winner left in his wake.
With less than a level left in the day, it looked like Erik Oelschlegel would be the Day 1a chip leader with well over 700,000. He bagged 739,000 but was behind Irishman George Stoddart (750,000) who is the Day 1a chip leader.
Christian Gruet (652,000), Mehdi Saidi (547,000), Sebastian Giangrasso (507,000) and Peter Loock (504,000) are the only other players over the 500,000 chip mark.
There were plenty of familiar faces who failed to make it through to Day 2 including 2018 WSOP Main Event runner-up Tony Miles, Dara O'Kearney, Nicholas Newport, Peter Jaksland, Jonathan Therme, Teunis Kooij, and Erwann Pecheux.
These players will have to make it through tomorrow's Day 1b or Turbo Day 1c which take place at 12:00 and 20:00 local time.
Stay tuned to PokerNews as we bring you all the live coverage from here in Dublin.