Speranza Leads After Day 1b PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo

Mo Nuwwarah

Apr 30, 2017 6 min read Last updated May 01, 2017

On Day 1b of PokerStars Championship presented by Monte-Carlo Casino® €5,300 Main Event, Italian player Gianluca Speranza finished with a narrow lead atop a tightly bunched group of players as 222 of 481 runners made it through the day.

Speranza's stack of 201,500 means Day 1a leader Jeff Hakim still paces the field by a wide margin.

Position	Player	Country	Chip Count
1	Gianluca Speranza	Italy	201,500
2	Michael Kolkowicz	France	197,300
3	Makram Saber	Lebanon	192,000
4	Xavier Rouayroux	France	192,000
5	David Urban	Slovakia	188,700
6	Raffaele Sorrentino	Italy	175,200
7	Remi Castaignon	France	160,000
8	Christopher Frank	Germany	152,000
9	Vasyl Zabrodskyy	Ukraine	146,400
10	Aleksei Istomin	Russia	144,600

Meanwhile, one of poker biggest superstars of a few years also put in a good performance. Patrik Antonius, who still is one of the most recognizable faces in poker, turned back the clock a bit as he ran up the chip lead by dinner break before ultimately finishing with 102,200.

Antonius sat in during Level 4 and doubled his starting stack almost immediately.

Antonius, best known for his high-stakes cash exploits, also has over $6.7 million in tournament winnings but has only booked a single cash in the past three years as he moves farther and farther from the global tournament scene.

Antonius sat in during Level 4 and doubled his starting stack almost immediately with a discerning call when he and an opponent each missed flush draws. Antonius did make a pair of fives, however, and called off on the river when his opponent put him all in.

Right before dinner, Antonius made a big move up the chip counts when four players saw an ace-king-three flop for a three-bet. Antonius held ace-three for two pair, and the player who three-bet was unable to get away from ace-queen, helping the Fin go to dinner with over 300 big blinds after he faded his opponent's outs on the turn and river.

Other notables bagging over six figures included EPT Barcelona champ Sebastian Malec (140,200), PokerStars Team Pro Liv Boeree (127,400), recent PokerStars National Championship winner Andreas Klatt, Davidi Kitai and Tom Hall.

Jan Bendik, who won the last EPT event here last year, also made it through, as did PokerStars Team Pros Daniel Negreanu, Igor Kurganov and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.

Ryan Riess' recent heater — including a WPT title in Florida — did not continue as he fizzled out after losing most of his stack to Jason Wheeler. Players joining him on the rail included Anthony Zinno, Paul Newey, Ami Barer, Ivan Luca and PokerStars Team Pro Felipe Ramos.

Day 1b's field pushed the two flight total for the event to 716 runners. There's still time for more to join them. Registration remains open until the noon restart, and PokerNews will pick up the coverage again then, so be sure to return for Day 2.

Table	Seat	Name	Country	Chip Count
1	1	Stefan Schillhabel	Germany	203.000
1	2	Francesco Grieco	Italy	58.900
1	4	Craig Varnell	United States	115.700
1	5	Vicente Delgado	Spain	107.000
1	6	Jose Vendrell Schwaiger	Germany	27.000
1	7	Marcin Wysocki	Denmark	19.000
1	8	Mikko Turtiainen	Finland	37.700

2	1	Matthew Hopkins	United Kingdom	94.600
2	2	Ran Azor	Israel	24.100
2	3	Patrik Tkac	Slovakia	37.600
2	4	Salvatore Pepi	Italy	39.500
2	5	Maria Ho	United States	16.500
2	6	Mark Teltscher	United Kingdom	90.100
2	7	Dominik Nitsche	Germany	26.200
2	8	Romain Nardin	France	86.000

3	1	Igor Kurganov	Russia	76.000
3	2	Peter Eichhardt	Sweden	121.900
3	3	John Juanda	Indonesia	45.900
3	4	Christoph Vogelsang	Germany	69.500
3	5	Jack Salter	United Kingdom	75.800
3	6	Preben Stokkan	Norway	54.600
3	8	Charlie Carrel	United Kingdom	48.400

4	1	Dmitrii Deviatov	Russia	15.400
4	2	Valerii Lubenets	Ukraine	83.700
4	3	Daniel Negreanu	Canada	27.600
4	5	Ryan Franklin	United States	106.000
4	6	Leo Nordin	Sweden	28.700
4	7	Paul Hoefer	Germany	12.100
4	8	Manuel Sadornil	Spain	50.500

5	2	Jason Mercier	United States	83.400
5	3	Alin Grasu	Romania	43.500
5	4	Vitaliy Imertsaki	Ukraine	37.100
5	5	Hossein Ensan	Germany	80.000
5	6	Dermot Blain	Ireland	37.000
5	7	Walid Bou Habib	Lebanon	35.000
5	8	Luigi Conti	Italy	94.700

6	1	Firas Nassar	Lebanon	51.600
6	2	Micha de Graaf	Belgium	93.400
6	3	Jimmy Guerrero	France	48.000
6	4	Sam Grafton	United Kingdom	12.000
6	6	Anton Hrabchak	Ukraine	48.700
6	7	Keven Stammen	United States	38.700
6	8	Pascal Hartmann	Germany	152.100

7	1	Tiberiu Zanfirache	Romania	46.300
7	2	Andreas Klatt	Germany	118.000
7	3	Yan Li	China	50.500
7	4	Ariel Malnik	Lithuania	78.300
7	5	Sindre Tvedt	Norway	76.800
7	7	Steven Mulder	Germany	20.600
7	8	Davy Chamorro	France	3.600

8	1	Cosmin Mihai Petrica	Romania	109.600
8	2	Govert Metaal	Netherlands	19.800
8	3	Lukasz Kubicki	Poland	92.700
8	4	Onur Unsal	Turkey	115.800
8	5	Daniel Smith	Monaco	90.100
8	7	Johan Guilbert	France	47.400
8	8	Remi Castaignon	France	160.000

9	1	Morten Mortensen	Denmark	96.800
9	3	Martin Lunde	Norway	87.000
9	4	Benjamin Pollak	France	53.800
9	5	Patrik Antonius	Finland	102.200
9	6	Hideki Takafuji	Japan	70.700
9	7	Andrejs Maklecovs	Latvia	81.500
9	8	Alexandru Papazian	Romania	95.300

10	1	Nabil Chaya	Canada	31.700
10	2	Vladimir Demenkov	Russia	70.000
10	3	Roger Tondeur	Switzerland	77.000
10	4	Sergio Aido	Spain	52.300
10	5	Steve O'Dwyer	Ireland	24.200
10	6	Jogvan Glerfoss	Faroe Islands	25.600
10	7	Paul-Francois Tedeschi	France	60.400

11	1	Carlos Chang	Taiwan	109.300
11	2	Aurelien Guiglini	France	28.900
11	3	Børge Sandsgaard	Norway	37.600
11	4	Krisztian Fejerdi	Hungary	7.500
11	5	Michel Pereira Marques	Brazil	168.900
11	7	Giovanni Lena	Italy	67.900
11	8	Luke Cerklewicz	United Kingdom	36.400

12	2	Nikolay Nikolov	Bulgaria	40.400
12	3	Markus Durnegger	Austria	106.400
12	4	Nick Petrangelo	United States	63.000
12	5	Moritz Dietrich	Germany	77.900
12	6	Jeremy Mamou	France	23.300
12	7	Nicolas Pouzenc	France	24.500
12	8	Henrik Tollefsen	Norway	22.300

13	2	Tsugunari Toma	Japan	70.500
13	3	Martin Jacobson	Spain	25.900
13	4	Viktor Shener	Russia	16.200
13	5	Emil Patel	Finland	46.100
13	6	Arne Coulier	Belgium	127.700
13	7	Rabah Ait-Abdelmalek	France	69.400
13	8	Michal Vitkovsky	Slovakia	94.000

14	1	Benjamin Heptinstall	Australia	84.000
14	2	Carlos Mironiuk	Argentina	55.300
14	3	Hauke Fick	Germany	49.700
14	4	Bas De Laat	Malta	56.200
14	5	Michel Pomaret	France	55.000
14	6	Macsim Robert	Romania	42.400
14	7	Sergei Petrushevskii	Russia	91.800
14	8	Philipp Kober	Austria	51.300

15	1	Karim Nabi	France	59.500
15	2	Karim Souaid	France	131.000
15	3	Javier Gomez Zapatero	Spain	23.600
15	4	Franck Makaci	France	56.200
15	5	Marcin Dziembala	Poland	70.900
15	6	Mikalai Vaskaboinikau	Belarus	57.500
15	7	Victoria Coren Mitchell	United Kingdom	35.500
15	8	Clemente Malheiro Carreira	Portugal	61.500

16	1	Sylvain Loosli	France	47.500
16	2	Ibrahim Ghassan	Lebanon	44.500
16	3	Fabiano Kovalski	Brazil	35.000
16	4	[Removed:43]	France	115.500
16	5	Jerome Arnould	France	26.200
16	6	Kliment Roussev Tarmakov	Canada	32.300
16	7	Thomas Popov	Canada	28.200
16	8	Michael Kolkowicz	France	197.300

17	1	Maxim Panyak	Russia	84.600
17	2	Adrien Allain	France	73.000
17	3	Istvan Birizdo	Hungary	61.200
17	4	Sergio Cabrera	United Kingdom	24.000
17	5	Bart Lybaert	Belgium	82.600
17	6	Marius Gierse	Germany	77.700
17	7	Vasileios Charalampakis	Greece	72.000
17	8	Michael Koran	Switzerland	30.200

18	1	Viliyan Petleshkov	Bulgaria	129.600
18	2	Sebastian Ruiz Figueroa	Chile	80.800
18	3	Andrew Chen	Canada	28.600
18	4	Paul Guichard	France	45.400
18	5	Ramin Hajiyev	Azerbaijan	97.000
18	6	Ionut Bodogai	Romania	49.200
18	7	Adolfo Vaeza	Uruguay	65.300
18	8	Carole Segoura	France	73.400

19	1	Tommaso Briotti	Italy	17.400
19	2	Ramon Miquel Munoz	Spain	121.500
19	3	Frederic Casalta	France	25.500
19	4	Isaac Haxton	United States	65.200
19	5	Manig Loeser	Germany	195.700
19	6	Arezki Belaidi	Canada	49.200
19	7	Jeffrey Hakim	Lebanon	305.300
19	8	Jullian Feriolo	France	98.900

20	1	Tommy Hjornerud	Norway	84.100
20	3	Makram Saber	Lebanon	192.000
20	4	Emin Aghayev	Azerbaijan	41.300
20	5	Dmytro Shuvanov	Ukraine	136.100
20	6	Adi Alkalay	Israel	105.800
20	7	Marco Masutti	Slovakia	39.900
20	8	Jean Koja	France	90.000

21	1	Dan Colman	United States	13.600
21	2	Ruslan Mityayev	Ukraine	28.100
21	3	James Mitchell	United Kingdom	109.000
21	4	Adrian Ionescu	Romania	38.400
21	5	[Removed:172]	Germany	35.200
21	6	Bradley Marsh	Canada	88.300
21	7	Adrien Delmas	France	33.300
21	8	Robert Pankowski	Poland	33.000

22	1	Jerome L'Hostis	United Kingdom	80.500
22	3	Michel Eid	Lebanon	49.900
22	4	Dan Smith	United States	49.100
22	5	Dzmitry Rabotkin	Belarus	49.300
22	6	Simonet Stephane	France	53.400
22	7	Kosumosu Yamanaka	Japan	23.800
22	8	Faraz Jaka	United States	98.100

23	1	Carlos Lopes	France	9.200
23	2	Waldemar Nowak	Poland	19.000
23	3	Dirk Van Luijk	Belgium	52.300
23	4	[Removed:170]	Lithuania	94.000
23	5	Jerome Sgorrano	Belgium	28.300
23	6	El Amir Ziad Chehab	Lebanon	30.000
23	7	Jawad Bengourane	France	82.000
23	8	Nicholas Galtos	Switzerland	24.100

24	1	Besiana Antoni	Albania	13.600
24	2	Hau Minh Nguyen	Australia	78.200
24	3	Jean Montury	France	35.000
24	4	Diego Vilela	Brazil	140.000
24	5	Raffaello Locatelli	Italy	64.800
24	6	Lee Hon Cheong	Hong Kong	10.400
24	7	Natasha Barbour	Canada	91.600
24	8	Florian Kossler	Germany	35.500

25	1	Benjamin Saada	France	22.000
25	2	Matthew Whiting	United Kingdom	42.100
25	3	Juri Mereu	Italy	55.000
25	4	Vishwanath Manjunath	United Kingdom	51.700
25	5	Jean Paul Zaffran	Israel	41.400
25	6	Alexander Debus	Germany	36.600
25	7	Leonardo Vilela	Brazil	107.200
25	8	Benny Glaser	United Kingdom	56.100

26	1	Didier Ortiz	Colombia	38.100
26	2	Jason Wheeler	United States	30.900
26	3	Oliver Weis	Germany	41.900
26	4	Mudasser Hussain	United Kingdom	20.100
26	5	Thomas Berg	Norway	83.100
26	6	Igor Yaroshevskyy	Ukraine	156.700
26	7	Maria Lampropulos	Argentina	53.000
26	8	Laurynas Levinskas	Lithuania	23.400

27	1	Isabel Baltazar	France	30.200
27	2	Lander Lijo	Spain	40.800
27	3	Gaelle Baumann	France	49.200
27	4	Thomas Muehloecker	Austria	18.200
27	5	Hicham Moussa	Nigeria	56.500
27	6	Fabrice Soulier	France	105.100
27	7	Xavier Rouayroux	France	192.000
27	8	Muhyedine Fares	Senegal	54.900

28	1	Jacques Torbey	Lebanon	107.300
28	2	Bruno Lopez	France	73.200
28	3	Stephen Woodhead	United Kingdom	55.800
28	4	Julio Martini Filho	Brazil	60.800
28	5	Levan Karamanishvili	Ukraine	53.300
28	6	Jean-Jacques Zeitoun	France	60.000
28	7	Ole Schemion	Germany	144.900
28	8	Shijirbaatar Sanjaasuren	Mongolia	130.000

29	1	Tom Hall	United Kingdom	102.000
29	2	Kent Roed	Norway	41.700
29	3	Maksim Shulga	Russia	80.800
29	4	Alexandre Moreau	France	63.200
29	5	Rocco Palumbo	Italy	105.900
29	6	Paul Testud	France	103.000
29	7	Aliaksei Boika	Belarus	77.000
29	8	Edouard Mignot	France	55.000

30	1	Harry Touil	France	18.700
30	2	Usman Siddique	United Kingdom	51.500
30	3	William Saad	Ivory Coast	47.900
30	4	Kaue De Souza	Brazil	44.300
30	5	Walery Engel	Germany	57.300
30	6	Espen Solaas	Norway	35.300
30	7	Cosmin Ionut Dumitricu	Romania	78.200
30	8	Gerald Karlic	Austria	45.000

31	1	Raffaele Sorrentino	Italy	175.200
31	2	Daniel Dvoress	Canada	44.200
31	3	Paul Gresel	Netherlands	50.600
31	4	Aleksandar Tomovic	Serbia	57.500
31	5	Rony Halimi	France	49.800
31	6	Romain Lewis	France	82.100
31	7	Benoit Lam	France	86.500
31	8	Celina Lin	Australia	125.500

32	1	Narcis-Gabriel Nedelcu	Romania	103.300
32	2	Andrey Bondar	Russia	49.200
32	3	Aleksandrs Golubevs	United Kingdom	25.900
32	4	Marius Cazacu	Romania	5.100
32	5	Kyrylo Kudyma	Ukraine	73.000
32	6	Sebastien Compte	France	26.000
32	7	Donald Duarte Sierra	Nicaragua	43.200
32	8	Andrey Vlasenko	Russia	12.800

33	1	Artur Sahakyan	Armenia	102.800
33	2	Christian Stokkeland	Norway	75.600
33	3	Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier	France	50.800
33	4	Christophe Larquemin	France	6.100
33	5	Fatima Moreira De Melo	Netherlands	32.300
33	6	Peyman Luth	Germany	78.800
33	7	Shakhabiddin Muradov	Latvia	142.500
33	8	Salvatore Candido Graziano	Switzerland	22.600

34	1	Anton Deglinne	Belgium	18.800
34	2	Thiago Crema	Brazil	128.700
34	3	Christopher George	United States	24.000
34	4	Alexey Tkachenko	Russia	21.700
34	5	Patrick Sacrispeyre	Morocco	25.900
34	6	Adrian Mateos	Spain	58.900
34	7	Aladin Reskallah	France	20.000
34	8	Ove Stenberg	Norway	33.400

35	1	Dick Postel	Malta	12.000
35	2	Iliodoros Kamatakis	Greece	105.000
35	4	Salvatore Bianco	Italy	127.900
35	5	Luiz Duarte	United States	43.100
35	6	Rafael Moraes	Brazil	53.400
35	7	Viacheslav Goryachev	Russia	23.100
35	8	Jose Gonzales	Argentina	62.000

36	1	Karen Oliver	United Kingdom	78.000
36	2	Jerome Brion	France	55.400
36	3	Justin Bonomo	United States	71.200
36	5	Hannes Speiser	Austria	88.400
36	6	Konstantinos Nanos	Germany	22.300
36	7	Kirill Ivanov	Russia	86.900
36	8	Gianluca Speranza	Italy	201.500

37	1	David Urban	Slovakia	188.700
37	2	Tom-Aksel Bedell	Norway	17.500
37	3	Giuseppe Zarbo	France	36.000
37	4	Davidi Kitai	Belgium	109.800
37	5	Liv Boeree	United Kingdom	127.400
37	6	Maxim Lykov	Russia	87.300
37	8	Diego Zeiter	Switzerland	52.500

38	2	Marco Weidner	Germany	31.600
38	3	Ke Chen	China	84.300
38	4	Douglas Ferreira Souza	Brazil	79.000
38	5	Wesley Wong	Canada	21.000
38	6	Jean Auberval	France	49.600
38	7	Robert Haigh	Germany	55.600
38	8	Chebli Chebli	Lebanon	61.900

39	1	Andrea Rocci	Italy	56.200
39	2	Alexandros Kolonias	Greece	29.000
39	4	Victor Zabukas Begara	Brazil	83.800
39	5	Lucas Greenwood	Canada	28.100
39	6	Aleksei Istomin	Russia	144.600
39	7	Christopher Frank	Germany	152.000
39	8	Davor Lanini	Italy	90.100

40	1	Evgenii Sboev	Russia	18.700
40	2	Alexandre Luneau	France	69.400
40	3	Andreas Hoivold	Norway	83.900
40	4	Vasyl Zabrodskyy	Ukraine	146.400
40	5	Ivan Glushkov	Russia	25.200
40	6	Ian Gillespie	United States	34.000
40	7	Yury Salikaev	Russia	63.200
40	8	Oystein Christensen	Norway	38.500

41	2	Simon Taberham	United Kingdom	61.800
41	3	Julien Pirard	Belgium	28.300
41	4	Marius-Catalin Pertea	Romania	82.700
41	5	Gavin O'Rourke	Ireland	11.000
41	6	Norberto Korn	Germany	71.300
41	8	Alexios Zervos	Greece	31.800

42	1	Sebastien Lebaron	France	21.500
42	2	Allan Dyrstad	Norway	14.400
42	3	Lauren Monosson	United States	64.100
42	4	Mickael Mamou	France	50.800
42	5	Sebastian Malec	Poland	140.100
42	6	Johny Jabra	Romania	31.800
42	7	Gediminas Kareckas	Lithuania	62.700
42	8	Arno Thuy	Belgium	39.500

43	1	Jan Bendik	Slovakia	67.800
43	2	Stefan Vagner	Slovakia	11.500
43	3	Michele Bianchi	Switzerland	58.700
43	4	Artan Dedusha	United Kingdom	96.700
43	6	Stefan Huber	Switzerland	96.000
43	7	Anil Ozdemir	Turkey	39.500
43	8	Giorgio Donzelli	Italy	26.700

44	1	Geoffroy Combette	France	44.800
44	3	Minh Phuc Nguyen	Australia	75.100
44	4	Francesco Favia	Italy	101.000
44	5	Nicola D'Anselmo	Italy	53.600
44	6	Diego Ventura	Peru	126.100
44	7	Nicolas Fuentes Vidal	Chile	76.400
44	8	Sonny Franco	France	33.700