"What a setup hand," Marcel Sittner joked while Mario Colavita replied "you had eight blinds, I am not going to fold."
Sittner was all-in with the holding a short stack and Colavita had a pair in . The runout gave both players a full house and Sittner headed to the payout desk.
Massimo De Mario followed shortly after as the field was reduced to the final 62 contenders.
Birger Ohl raised to 25,000 and Yehuda Cohen then moved all-in for 75,000 on the button. Ruslan Volkov called in the big blind and Ohl ripped it in for Volkov to snap-call as the two bigger stacks went to war.
Yehuda Cohen:
Birger Ohl:
Ruslan Volkov:
"Ace one time, come on," Cohen demanded but instantly vaulted out of his seat when the flop gave Volkov kings full. It was all over on the turn and the river was a formality. Cohen's departure was already guaranteed while the stacks were counted. Volkov had 600,000 behind and Ohl was covered as he had just shy of 570,000.
Emil Bise pushed all in for his remaining 64,000 chips which was called by Tom Cohen.
Emil Bise:
Tom Cohen:
There was no help for Bise on the board of . Cohen's nine-kicker was good enough for the win.
Meanwhile at a nearby table Vincent De Neve went all in on the river against Edmond Jahjaga with on the felt. Jahjaga found a call and rolled over . De Neve pat his hand on the table to acknowledge the good call. A big double-up for Jahjaga.
Vasileios Chatzilazarou hit the rail and Marius Gicovanu then sent his stack over to fellow Romanian Silviu Baltaeanu.
In the meanwhile, Mario Colavita lost a bigger chunk of his stack to Nedeljko Todorovic. They created a fairly large pot to the river on which Todorovic checked in the small blind. Colavita knuckled it back and Todorovic was immediately upset.
"Damn, straight, I was waiting for you to bet," Todorovic announced as he flashed the for the six-high straight. "Che cazzo," Colavita exclaimed and chucked his cards into the muck.
Besnik Lalinovci jammed for 184,000 in the cutoff and was called by Nedeljko Todorovic on the button.
Besnik Lalinovci:
Nedeljko Todorovic:
Lalinovci shook his head when the flop reduced his chances of survival significantly. However, he pulled a rabbit out of the hat with the turn and river to improve to a straight and double.
Right after that, the clock was stopped and the final three hands of the night were announced.
The stacks of Anil Ataoglu and Mehmet Altinok were counted with the cards and board still exposed. Martin Kabrhel kindly told the dealer to "give everything to seat eight" as he instantly saw that Altinok was covered. His had flopped top and bottom pair before getting it in on the turn.
Anil Ataoglu was trailing with the but the river counterfeited the two pair of Altinok. With some 420,000 behind, Altinok was covered by Ataoglu and was sent to the rail.
The final 57 players all bagged up their chips and will return the following day at 2pm local time when the tournament continues the race towards the official final table. Full chip counts and a recap of today's action are to follow.
The Spring Edition of the 2022 WSOP International Circuit at the King's Resort in Rozvadov is one step closer to crowning a champion in Europe's biggest poker arena. After ten levels of 60 minutes each, the bubble burst in the WSOP Circuit €1,700 Main Event and 57 players bagged up chips for the night out of a field of 648 entries.
Unlike the previous two editions in September 2021 and January 2022, the €1,000,000 guarantee was not surpassed despite 95 new entries on Day 2 and the top 71 finishers locked up cash prizes. American poker Jason Wheeler was eliminated on the money bubble and more than a dozen contenders were sent to the payout desk at end of the night.
Ruslan Volkov finished Day 2 with the chip lead after he won a large three-way all-in during the final level, which ultimately propelled his stack to 1,378,000. Close behind are the €2,200 High Roller ring event winner Fausto Tantillo (1,330,000) and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Martin Kabrhel (1,265,000). Another seven players claimed seven-figure stacks to their name and that also includes the 2021 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Josef Gulas Jr (1,034,000).
WSOPC €1,700 Main Event Day 2 Top 10 Counts
Position
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Ruslan Volkov
Ukraine
1,378,000
86
2
Fausto Tantillo
Italy
1,330,000
83
3
Martin Kabrhel
Czech Republic
1,265,000
79
4
Nedeljko Todorovic
Slovenia
1,251,000
78
5
Anil Ataoglu
Germany
1,225,000
77
6
Daniele D'Angelo
Italy
1,081,000
68
7
Nadir Kinno
Germany
1,078,000
67
8
Li Chen
China
1,072,000
67
9
Josef Gulas Jr
Czech Republic
1,034,000
65
10
Marek Sulc
Czech Republic
1,005,000
63
Among the remaining hopefuls with a shot at the €160,500 top prize are also Lukas Zaskodny, Claudio Di Giacomo, Raoul Refos, Vincent De Neve, 2021 WSOP Europe bracelet winner Edmond Jahjaga, David Taborsky, Mihai Ciprian Hanu, and Day 1a chip leader Tibor Nagygyörgy. Stephanie Agostinetti is the last woman in the field and advanced with a stack of 354,000.
Notables in the money included the former WSOP Circuit King's winner Andrea Ricci, the WSOP bracelet winners Sebastian Langrock and Emil Bise, Elias Abou Saleh, Ioannis Chaitas, and Marius Gicovanu.
The Action of the Day
From the get-go it was a frantic affair as the marquee tournament attracted several dozen new entries and re-entries in the first two levels. Towards the end of the registration period, the field was already shuffled significantly with the departures of notables such as Ondrej Drozd, Sergiu Covrig, Pierre Mothes, Michal Mrakes, Josef Snejberg, Alexander Dovzhenko, Renat Bohdanov, and Dalibor Dula.
Pierre Trauer started the day as one of the big stacks but fell well short of the money when he his turned straight only had two outs to a straight flush against he flopped full house of Mario Colavita. The 2021 EPT Prague €5,300 Main Event champion Symeon Alexandris started his rise on the leaderboard soon after when he flopped two pair to knock out Dimitri Huley.
GGPoker ambassador Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier was one of several high-profile casualties outside of the money when his pair was outflipped by Nadir Kinno. Floor ten Zijthof was halted by Martin Kabrhel, who was his usual jovial talkative self en route to running up a big stack. Another female contestant was eliminated before the money bubble when Aylar Lie saw her pocket queens cracked by the ace-queen suited of Volkan Alkan.
More than two dozen contestants ran out of chips once the min-cash was locked up and Ruslan Volkov skyrocketed into the top spot thanks to a three-way all-in. He had the best of it heading into the showdown with pocket kings against the ace-queen of Yehuda Cohen and the pocket queens of Day 1b chip leader Birger Ohl. A king in the window sealed the fate of Cohen and Ohl to end the night in spectacular fashion.
Day 3 is scheduled to get underway at 2pm local time on Monday, April 22. The returning blinds in level 20 will be 8,000-16,000 with a big blind ante of 16,000. Another two days remain to crown a champion at the King's Resort and the penultimate tournament day will whittle the field down to the final nine hopefuls for the official final table.
Right from the start, the live stream action on the feature table will be broadcasted on a security delay of one hour on the King's Resort Twitch and YouTube channels. The PokerNews team will be back then to provide as many key hands as possible from all tables.