Familiar Faces Make it Through to Day 2; Piet Bakker Leads
Day 1 of the 2016 World Poker Tour Amsterdam Main Event started today in the Dutch capital with a total field of 115 players. Of those 115, 52 will return on Thursday for Day 2 after nine grueling levels.
All eyes were on Farid Yachou, the player that played his first big live event here last year and ended up winning it for €201,000 ($225,073). His amazing story didn't end there, things only became more of a fairytale when he won the WPT Tournament of Champions last month for another $381,600. With just two mayor events played and two wins, could he continue his amazing rush here back on home soil? Well, he'll still have some options to win this event, but Day 1a wasn't good for him. He didn't shy away from big pots and ended up busting when he ran pocket threes into pocket queens. With reentry allowed, Yachou will likely be back, though.
Yachou wasn't the first to bust, as that honor belonged to Vincent Gabel when his bluff with a flush draw was called by top set. Noah Boeken ran into a set early on as well, though the 2013 Master Classics of Poker champion had a set himself when the money went in.
Boeken's friend Chino Rheem was also in attendance, though he didn't last much longer than Boeken did. Rheem three-bet someone preflop, got cold-called, and continued to three-barrel his stack off with an unimproved nine-three off suit. The player in position simply called with his full house and Rheem was halfway out the door by the time the cards were opened up.
Some players in the field were seen multi-tabling. Not that they were running around between different tournaments like you sometimes see players with bracelet bets do at the World Series of Poker, but rather these players were seen combining live and online. Several players were seen grinding on phones, and Jason Wheeler made things even more extreme by having his laptop out for the last couple of hours. He did well in the live event by making Day 2 with a stack of over 100,000, and how he did online we'll have to have him tell us tomorrow.
A battalion of recognizable faces had swarmed to sunny Amsterdam to play this event. Besides the names already mentioned, the likes of Louis Salter, Felipe Ramos, Dietrich Fast, Rumen Nanev, and Tony Dunst played today.
Not only international players flocked Holland Casino Amsterdam, too, as lots of local players were in attendance. Players like Govert Metaal, Jasper Wetemans, Joep van den Bijgaart, and bracelet winner Marcel Vonk all spent the day playing poker, though not all survived.
The regular with the most Dutch name of all, Piet Bakker, finished on top of the chip counts for Day 1a, ending the day with 241,000. The biggest hand he played was one where he flopped an open-ended straight draw with ten-eight on nine-seven-five. The six on the turn resulted in both Anthony Zinno and another player all in, and Bakker was the one raking in all the chips after both players turned over just an eight for a lower straight.
While most of the survivors will return to Holland Casino on Thursday, all of them have the option to play Wednesday's Day 1b and move their best stack forward. Players that busted today will also be able to reenter tomorrow, and if that's not enough, all busted players have the option to buy in right before the start of Day 2 as well for the maximum amount of three entries per player.
PokerNews.com will be back in Holland Casino for Day 1b on Wednesday at 2 p.m. local time, and we hope you'll be there following along.