2015 PokerNews Cup Main Event Day 1b: Jens Dengler Leads the Pack
On Friday, Nov. 20, the second starting day of the 2015 PokerNews Cup €200,000 guaranteed Main Event drew a field of 174 participants, bringing the number of entries to a total of 272. Many more players are expected to pony up the €250 buy-in and join the field on Saturday when King's Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, will host the last two starting flight of the event, but right now there's proving to be plenty of value to be had.
Day 1b began at 17:00 CET, right after the penultimate satellite in the schedule awarded 11 seats — three more than the eight guaranteed.
After 14 levels of play, only 36 survivors got to bag a stack after securing a seat in Sunday's Day 2. Germany's Jens Dengler left the tournament room safe in the knowledge of sitting atop the chip counts with a stack of 412,000.
Right now, Dengler is only 34,000 chips behind the Main Event's overall chip leader, as Lithuania's Rytas Staniukynas closed Day 1a of the Main Event with a stack of 446,000.
Top 5 Day 1b Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jens Dengler | Germany | 412,000 |
| 2 | Marek Bartoszewicz | Poland | 305,000 |
| 3 | Robert Obrtlik | Slovakia | 259,500 |
| 4 | Michael Waldmann | Germany | 247,500 |
| 5 | Lucian Ene | Romania | 224,500 |
Still in the event is Australia's Lewis Murray, whose second bullet turned out to be much more successful than yesterday's first one.
"I need to double up or I risk to start the Day 2 with less than five big blinds," Murray told PokerNews right before the last level of the day began. "That would make no sense."
Luckily enough, the cards helped him to keep alive the dream of supporting a two-month trip around Europe by playing live poker, as he was able to bag 117,500 in chips at the day's end.
The list of Day 1b's bust outs includes some familiar faces, too. One of those was the winner of 2013 Unibet Open Cannes, France's poker pro Quentin Lecomte. In Rozvadov to play in the PokerNews Cup and to enjoy the juicy cash games that run around-the-clock at King's Casino, Lecomte did not manage to put his experience to good use.
Similarly, the reigning champion of the Italian Masters of Poker, Christoph Merten, and Barcelona-based former professional footballer and winner of the 2012 Paradise Poker Tour 2 Barcelona Main Event, Aleksander Abutovic, hit the showers well before the day officially ended.
Although things may not have gone as he wanted, Abutovic said that he enjoyed the event and called the PokerNews Cup "one of the best low buy-in events available in Europe right now."
"Only a few weeks ago, I have seen another so-called 'low buy-in event' offering a €45,000 guaranteed prize pool for a €400 buy-in," he said. "Here, you pay €250, and you get to play for a share of €200,000. I think the numbers speak for themselves."
There's also no Day 2 for Inna Ohorodnyk. The Ukranian online poker player who qualified for the Main Event at partypoker lost her chance to advance to two levels before the day's end, when her attempt to double up with 3x3x was called by an opponent who held AxAx.
Out of the game was also German PokerNews Cup regular Karl-Heinz Metz, Slovakia's Matus Schnierer, and Poland's Przemyslav Omylak.
The 36 players who survived Day 1b will be back on Sunday, Nov. 22, when Day 2 of the Main Event will begin at 14:00 CET.
Action Restarts Tomorrow at 14:00
With two more starting flights to go, we expect many more people to enter in the Main Event during Saturday, Nov. 21.
Action is set to restart at 14:00 CET with the beginning of Day 1c, and the last chance to earn a seat to Day 2 will then begin at 21:00 with the turbo Day 1d.
Also on the schedule for Saturday is a €40 Turbo Satellite awarding at least five guaranteed seats at 11:00 CET, along with the €60 King's Hold'em Championship with a €12,000 guarantee at 17:00 CET. Those hanging around late will also be able to play in the PokerNews €100 King's Deepstack Late Night Turbo at 23:00 CET.
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