TonyBet OFC Poker World Championship Sets Records in Prague
A field of 135 entries and a €117,855 prize pool made the TonyBet Open-Face Chinese Poker World Championship Main Event the biggest open-face Chinese (OFC) live poker event ever organized.
On Tuesday, Dec. 9, the TonyBet World Championship saw its High Roller event become the richest OFC live poker tournament in history with a total prize pool of €218,500.
"We had high expectations for the event, but even we were surprised by the actual numbers," a TonyBet Poker spokesperson told PokerNews.
"We surpassed the previous record twice and proved that open-face Chinese poker is underestimated by the biggest poker tours. There's a huge potential for the game and we believe it’s only going to grow."
The record-breaking field also featured some big poker names including the two-time World Series of Poker WSOP bracelet winner Konstantin Puchkov, WSOP Player of the Year George Danzer, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure High Roller champion and WSOP bracelet winner Alex Bilokur, Polish poker icon Marcin Horecki, recent World Poker Tour Prague winner Alex Goulder, Michael "michaelsc" Schwartz.
At the tables appeared also the OFC High Roller champion Jennifer Shahade, and Alexander Kostritsyn, who chose to play the event instead of grinding online high stakes tables against the likes of Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, and Viktor Blom.
The 135-player field outgrew the previous record set at the $230 MasterMinds OFC event which took place last March in Sao Paulo, Brazil and attracted a total of 64 entries.
"Beating two records in two nights is not something every poker event can brag about, so we’re really happy about putting OFC under such a bright spotlight," TonyBet's spokesperson said. "I mean we beat such big names as WSOP and EPT in the first attempt, so the only way to go now is up. We set the bar really high both for ourselves and for all the future live OFC poker events."
After Day1 of the Main Event, there are 14 players left in the running for the title, the €35,000 first-place prize and the Champion's belt. Day 2 of the tournament will start at 3 p.m. (UTC+1) featuring a live stream available on the TonyBet Poker Live blog.
Here are the stacks of the remaining 14 players:
| Player | Chips | Nationality |
|---|---|---|
| Nikita Nikolaev | 502,000 | Russia |
| Mikal Blomlie | 439,000 | Norway |
| Maxim Panyak | 418,000 | Russia |
| Oleg Udovenko | 361,000 | Ukraine |
| Amir Mozafforian | 338,000 | Germany |
| Jan Hendrik Tapken | 334,000 | Germany |
| Alexander Lakhov | 332,000 | Russia |
| Jurgen Hellen | 331,000 | Germany |
| Igor Belakovskiy | 248,000 | Ukraine |
| Gary Stone | 210,000 | Great Britain |
| Mikalai Davidovich | 201,000 | Belarus |
| Iakov Onuchin | 185,000 | Russia |
| Andrii Nodieliaev | 169,000 | Ukraine |
| Ron Oomen | 13,000 | Netherlands |
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