Maxim Panyak Leads Day 1a

The 11th Season of the World Poker Tour opened post-World Series of Poker with a return to Kyrenia for the WPT Merit Cyprus Classic. A field of 169 players deposited their cash here at the all-inclusive resort, but by the end of the first day, over half of the field was lost with Maxim Panyak finishing as the Day 1a chip leader. The Russian won several big pots throughout the day, including knocking out Andreas Krause with {Q-} {Q-} versus {A-} {K-} . He finished the day with 255,800 – a healthy target for everyone playing Day 1b. Atzlan Gil was the only other player over the 200,000 mark, and he's in second place with 207,100.

Among those who played today was Gaelle Baumann, the somewhat unlucky 10th-place finisher from this year's WSOP Main Event. The Frenchwoman made it is as far as Level 5 before she held {A-} {K-} on a {K-} {3-} {3-} board against two-time WPT champion Tommy Vedes' {3-} {2-} in a three-bet pot.

Vedes himself didn't last too much longer, but we suspect he'll be re-entering tomorrow. Other big names who took a shot today and failed, but will probably be back tomorrow include Chris Moorman (got short stacked and lost with eights to queens), Dominik Nitsche (busted with top two pair against a set), Nicolas Chouity (made a big bluff and got called) and Zimnan Ziyard (top pair versus two pair).

However some big names remained as Toni Judet (101,000) Marco Neuman (63,300) and Stuart Fox (86,200) have all made it through to Day 2.

Tomorrow, an even bigger field is expected including all four of the Mizrachi brothers. We've also heard that both Daniel Cates and Chino Rheem may be in attendance. Day 1b will be starting from 1:00 PM local time once again, so you'd better tune in to get all the info from the PokerNews Live Reporting Team!

In the meantime, check out a beautiful tour of this WPT location from our very own Lynn Gilmartin.