2015 Unibet Open Copenhagen Day 1b: Twitch Sensation Sam "strippin" Thorne Bags
Day 1b of the 2015 Unibet Open Copenhagen, which was visiting the Radisson Blu Scandinavia Hotel in Denmark for the third time, attracted 236 entries, which with Day 1a's 168 runners brought the total field up to 404 entrants, just slightly less than last year when Frederik Jensen defeated 405 players to grab the DKK 625,000 first-place prize.
The total prize pool this year is DKK 2,908,800, which translates to €389,984. The lion's share will go to the winner who'll receive DKK 620,000 (€83,115), while 45 players will get into the money and guarantee themselves DKK 15,000 (€2,011). The man best positioned to make a deep run from the Day 1b field is Aage Eikeland, who finished the night as chip leader with 260,000.
He's closely followed by Kristo Gavazov (223,600) and Tiago Santos (211,200).
Top 10 Day 1b Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aage Eikeland | 260,000 |
| 2 | Kristo Gavazov | 223,600 |
| 3 | Tiago Samtos | 211,200 |
| 4 | Ville Jantunen | 190,700 |
| 5 | Tim Ben Jdidia | 172,500 |
| 6 | Simen Risan Sievre | 171,900 |
| 7 | Mike Hill | 163,300 |
| 8 | Henrik Hecklen | 153,700 |
| 9 | Andreas Johansson | 152,900 |
| 10 | Stig Farholi | 152,500 |
Day 1b saw a lot of familiar faces, though many would fall before the day reached the completion of 10 levels. Well known online player Simon "ministerborg" Ravnsbæk was one of them, and he wouldn't be standing alone on the rail. He would have enough time to catch up with last year's winner Frederik Brink Jensen. The Unibet Open and European Poker Tour champ first folded a straight on a paired board, only to be shown rivered trips turned into a bluff. He then lost the remainder of his stack with sixes to tens.
Unibet Open Cannes 2013 champion Quentin Lecomte would also hit the rail before the end of the day. He got into an iffy spot when he turned top two pair holding ace-queen against a suddenly check-raising player who had limped before the flop. Lecomte called the turn chec- raise and the river shove, only to be shown the flopped set Quentin feared his opponent would have.
Poker reporting veteran Rikard Åberg was also one of the notables we spotted away from the table too early. Åberg had a swingy day, and saw it end with an ill-timed shove with ace-jack suited. The big blind woke up with ace-king and ended Åberg's aspiration of turning pro.
The story of the day was Sam "strippin" Thorne. If you go searching for his HendonMob or online screenname on Unibet, you won't find one. Thorne had never played poker before but was here on an invitation from Unibet because he's quite the popular guy on Twitch, YouTube and Twitter. With hundred of thousands of followers he was the perfect guy to get a new chunk of people interested in poker, and it all worked out perfectly.
He learned poker a day before, played his heart out, and did surprisingly well. He got lucky in the last hand of the day to stay alive, but that could've happen to anyone holding ace-king up against aces. Thorne brought thousands of viewers to the Unibet Open live stream and hundreds of comments to the chat box on the Twitch channel. Thorne will return on Day 2 with 97,500.
The first hurdle to take will be reaching the money on Saturday. With 45 players getting paid, there's quite some work to be done before the organization is going to hand out checks. After the bubble bursts, the quest for the final table will take place. Of course PokerNews will be on hand to capture all the action, so please check back then.
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