Main Event
Day 1a Started
Main Event
Day 1a Started
In about two and a half hours, the first-ever World Poker Tour Main Event in Holland will commence. After a successful WPT National event in Holland Casino Valkenburg last year, won by Niels van Leeuwen and a third-place finish for Marcel Lüske, it's now time for the real deal with a complete poker festival in the nation's capital of Amsterdam.
The WPT festival in Amsterdam is already in full swing, as the €6,000 High Roller started on Saturday and the €330 WPT Warm Up event completed yesterday.
The High Roller was scheduled as a two-day event, but there are still two players remaining, and they'll battle it out for the first-place prize of €125,000 today. Jason Wheeler and Jack Salter will go head to head at 2 p.m. local time, and PokerNews.com will bring you the latest news on that event as well.
Also at 2 p.m. local time, the WPT Main Event will have its first of two flights. With a buy-in of €3,300, Main Event players will have the option to reenter once each day. The starting stack is 30,000, and the maximum capacity per day is 150 players.
PokerNews.com will be in Amsterdam the entire week to bring you all the updates you can ask for. With photos from acclaimed WPT photographer Alin Ivanov and videos from the WPT team, PokerNews.com will be your one-stop shop this week for everything WPT Amsterdam!
The level duration for both starting days is 60 minutes, going to 90-minute levels from Day 2 onwards. It's up to tournament director Christian Scalzi's discretion to decide how many levels will be played on Day 1a and 1b. We are, however, expecting to see at least eight levels, and possibly 10.
Level | Small Blind | Big Blind | Ante |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 50 | 100 | -- |
2 | 75 | 150 | -- |
3 | 75 | 150 | 25 |
4 | 100 | 200 | 50 |
5 | 150 | 300 | 50 |
6 | 200 | 400 | 50 |
7 | 250 | 500 | 75 |
8 | 300 | 600 | 75 |
9 | 400 | 800 | 100 |
10 | 500 | 1,000 | 100 |
Level: 1
Blinds: 50/100
Ante: 0
The cards are in the air for the first-ever World Poker Tour event in Amsterdam!
Photos by WPT photographer Alin Ivanov.
Over on one of the first tables we spotted in the poker room, we noticed two of poker's biggest stars side by side. Three-time World Poker Tour champion Anthony Zinno will be flanked by two-time WPT and three-time World Series of Poker champion Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi.
Mizrachi ranks 11th in the world on the all-time money list with $14.6 million in career earnings, and in total he has five seven-figure scores on his poker résumé.
Zinno had a breakout performance at the 2013 Borgata Poker Open World Poker Tour event when he beat Vanessa Selbst heads up for the title. Less than two years later Zinno won two more WPT events, the 2015 LAPC and the 2015 Fallsview Poker Classic. In total Zinno has $3.1 million in career earnings, and he ranks 13th on the GPI 300 list.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Anthony Zinno
|
30,000 | 30,000 |
Michael Mizrachi
|
30,000 | 30,000 |
Right alongside the Main Event, Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Amsterdam €6,000 High Roller has started. What started out as a two-day tournament, it needed a third day after play was still quite deep last night.
Jack Salter and Jason Wheeler have started just now. Salter returned with 2.415 million in chips and started out with a lead over Wheeler, who had 1.385 million, but Wheeler won some chips early on by successfully raising buttons and a three-bet that initiated a fold from Salter.
We've spotted quite a few local players in the early goings of this event, and we'll see if the early bird will get the worm here today on Day 1a.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Barrie Pietersz | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Jasper Meijer van Putten | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Johan Verhagen | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Erik van den Berg | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Jacco Hester
|
30,000 | 30,000 |
Chin Sin Chang | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Mark Roovers | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Marcel Vonk | 30,000 | |
Raoul Refos | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Ad Schaap | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Pim van Riet | 30,000 | |
Clyde Tjauw Foe | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Wim Emo | 30,000 | 30,000 |
Every country has its poker legends, and Rob Hollink is without a doubt one of the Netherlands' biggest stars. After winning the EPT Grand Final in the first season for €635,000, Hollink finished fifth in the WPT Championship just one month later for $377,420.
In 2008 Hollink became the first Dutchman to win a World Series of Poker bracelet in the $10,000 Limit Hold'em Championship, and in total he has $3.3 million in career tournament earnings.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Rob Hollink | 30,000 |
While the two players exchange blinds, Jason Wheeler and Jack Salter took their time praising the city of Amsterdam, and Holland Casino in particular.
"They just make it fun," Wheeler said.
"They're really accommodating," Salter added.
Both of them have played poker here in the capital of the Netherlands before, as they both visited the Master Classics of Poker last year.
"Really, there's no other city in the world I would miss that big online Sunday for," Wheeler added, with Salter in agreement.
The players agreed to have a break after every level because heads-up play is quite intense. So far, no big pots, so let's see what happens.