Sacha Pagnia Leads The Way After Day 1a
The first ever World Poker Tour event in the Netherlands got down to 48 players after 14 level on Day 1a with Sacha Pagnia as our chip leader with 278,000 chips. Holland Casino Valkenburg is host to this WPT National event and the first day of poker action on top of the world famous Cauberg drew a crowd of 179 players.
Plenty of top pros showed up for Day 1a including the leader of the Dutch all-time money list, Marcel Luske. Luske has $4.2 million in live tournament earnings but he won't be adding any to that just yet in Valkenburg.
The Dutchman ran top pair into top two pair and that was the end of his tournament. Luske can re-enter tomorrow if he chooses to do so, and if there's a ticket available for him. For now Day 1b is sold out, but alternates are let in for the first nine levels.
Another big name was knocked out a few levels later, as former WPT runner up Steve Wong lost his chips to Pim van Wieringen. Wong was caught making a move on the flop when he moved all in with ace-jack high. Van Wieringen had flopped a pair of nines and called to knock his opponent out.
Both Post brothers, Freerk and Zeus, were also eliminated on Day 1a but are likely to re-enter tomorrow. Freerk called down his opponent, Emile Hijman, who rivered a straight for the knockout. Zeus was eliminated when his pocket jacks did not improve against the queens of his opponent.
Among the players that did survive the first of two starting days we've spotted Paul Berende (96,000), Mateusz Moolhuizen (33,500) and the aforementioned Pim van Wieringen (90,000). The remaining players will return on Saturday when the field combines at 3:50 p.m. local time to play down to a final table.
Make sure to tune back in with PokerNews.com tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. local time, when Day 1b of this tournament kicks off.