Ali Sameeian, who won his entry for the Main Event in the Satellite yesterday, is a King's regular and good friends with Sebastian Langrock. He walked away slowly from the tournament area and then quickly assured that he had only played five hands and was still in, just taking a quick smoke break. "This will be my tournament," the German added.
He is one of more than 200 entrants of the first starting day with 214 players registered according to the screens.
Among some of the new entrants in the past hour are Belarus' Vasili Firsau with about 29,000 chips. Firsau already has one golden ring in this poker festival to his name, shipping the WSOP Circuit PLO High Roller for €44,100.
Shortly after Huseyin folded a big pot to PLO High Roller winner Vasili Firsau, Germany's Arkun Husain doubled up at the expense of Romania's Nandor Solyom.
On a board of and the pot already over 7,000 chips, Solyom lead out for a bet of 2,250. Husain declared he was all-in for about 16,000, which Solyom called.
Husain turned over for a full house, while Solyom was drawing dead before the last card hit the board holding .
On the river of a king-high board, Thomer Pidun fired 5,500 and his table neighbor called to get shown for a pair of jacks. Pidun's hand ended up second best though, as the opponent held for the flopped flush draw and rivered top pair.
On the three-way flop of , Vasili Firau made it 5,000 to go and Arkun Huseyin raised it up to 13,000 to enforce a fold from the third player in the hand. Firsau was having none of it and shoved to enforce a fold from his opponent.
The Belorussian won the PLO High Roller Event a few days ago and had just sat down not long ago, immediately increasing his stack.
Paul Michaelis won his first ever WSOP bracelet this summer in Las Vegas and came close to a second one in Berlin a few weeks ago. Ultimately, Michaelis had to settle for third place and Makarios Avramidis won the € 2,200 No Limit Hold'em - Six Max #1 to make it three for Greece during the festival in Germany.
Michaelis sits next to Thomer Pidun and Mikkel Plum, Avramidis is in the field today as well. The Greek was just spotted paying off a bet of 10,500 on the river of a board against his table neighbor and then mucked when he was shown for a full house.
We're now officially at 225 entrants and growing — and it looks like the initial prediction of 250 entrants might be too low. A turbo WSOP Circuit Main Event qualifier that rewarded 10 seats just ended with it being expected some of those players to hop in today's action.
On a table with Makarios Avramidis, Gerald Karlic bet the cutoff for 1,000 on a flop of and the player on the button called. On the turn, Karlic fired 2,500 and received yet another call before triggering the final barrel worth 5,000 once the appeared on the river.
That was enough to take down the pot without showdown.
Atik Miah welcomed Claus Carlsen to his table in the very own way, as the two engaged in a raising war. It appeared to be a four-bet to 4,200 by Carlsen in the small blind and Miah then five-bet to hefty 16,400. "Get it in my friend, I can't fold my hand," the Brit said in table chat and Carlsen eventually folded.