World Poker Tour Prague Day 1a: Pasi Heinanen Leads
On Monday, Day 1a of the PartyPoker World Poker Tour Prague Main Event took place, and 155 players came out to the action. Of the group, 55 competitors advanced to Day 2 with Pasi Heinanen in the chip lead. Heinanen bagged up 193,800 in chips to slightly edge out Shannon Shorr's stack of 191,800.
WPT Prague Day 1a Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pasi Heinanen | 193,800 |
| 2 | Shannon Shorr | 191,800 |
| 3 | Pawel Brzeski | 173,100 |
| 4 | Sebastien Garrasi | 143,900 |
| 5 | Oleksii Khoroshenin | 129,800 |
| 6 | Yngve Hella Steen | 109,200 |
| 7 | Roman Korenev | 95,900 |
| 8 | Marc Andre Lang | 93,700 |
| 9 | Michael Watson | 88,400 |
| 10 | Julian Herold | 84,100 |
While Heinanen surpassed Shorr right at the end of the night by a mere 2,000 in chips, it was Shorr who held down the fort at the top of the group for much of the day. It was reported that Shorr had climbed to a stack of 72,000 in chips during Level 4, and that in Level 6 he saw a nice boost to his stack when he eliminated Bryn Kenney from play.
With the blinds at 200/400/50, Kenney found himself all in and at risk against Shorr with 9x9x. Shorr had him covered and crushed with AxAx and easily held from there to move to approximately 160,000 in chips.
Other notables who amassed solid stacks moving forward, but who finished outside of the top 10, were Paul Volpe (80,000), Aaron Gustavson (74,400) and Rinat Bogdanov (71,000).
Former WPT champions Matt Waxman and Sean Jazayeri were both bounced from action along with Faraz Jaka, Jonathan Duhamel, Keven Stammen, Kristijonas Andrulis and Nicolas Levi. Waxman fell during Level 8 with the blinds at 300/600/75 in a three-way clash involving opponents Pawel Brzeski and Bulat Bikmetov.
After a raise and a call, Waxman moved all in for about 16,000 from the hijack seat. Brzeski reraised all in from the cutoff seat for 52,000, and then Bikmetov went all in from the small blind for more. Everyone else folded, leaving Waxman's K♥Q♥ against the A♣K♣ for Bikmetov and the 10♥10♣ for Brzeski.
The flop gave Brzeski a set of tens when the K♦10♠3♥ rolled out. The turn brought the Q♣ to leave all players with a chance to win the pot, but the 8♦ on the river ended all hopes, and Brzeski won the hand. Waxman was eliminated, while Bikmetov got knocked back to 19,000 in chips.
Everyone eliminated on Day 1a will have the option to re-enter on Day 1b and then again on Day 1c if that fails. That should create a nice prize pool for the players and give them plenty of opportunities to make a deep run.
Day 1b will commence on Tuesday at 1300 CET (0700 ET), and you can be certain to find a daily recap of the action right here on PokerNews.
Data and photo courtesy of WorldPokerTour.com.
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