Panka Bubbles, Simao Among Big Stacks at partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Germany
The partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Germany €5,300 Main Event saw 324 hopefuls out of a 1,022 entry strong field, including eight no-shows, return to their seats for Day 2 in Europe's biggest poker arena at the King's Casino in Rozvadov.
The money bubble burst and the day ended after three dozen players headed to the payout desk. 91 players return for Day 3 of the Main Event.
Best-positioned for the first-place payout of €1,000,000 is Aristeidis Moschonas with 36.55 million in chips. Moschonas claimed the top spot after Day 1c and returned to the spotlight after a lengthy bubble period.
Other big stacks and notables at the end of level 20 include Pavel Plesuv (28.725 million), Oliver Price (28 million), Abdelhakim Zoufri (27.5 million), Artan Dedusha (25.125 million), Jan Mach (22.675 million), Norson Saho (22.4 million), Gianluca Speranza (20.45 million), Viktor Blom (18.3 million), Florian Duta (17.2 million), Vojtech Ruzicka (16.9 million), Robert Bickley (15.475 million) and Jack Sinclair (14.4 million).
Especially Speranza and Bickley have fond memories here in Rozvadov after finishing 2nd and 4th respectively in the 2017 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event a few months ago.
Four partypoker representatives bagged up and will be back in action for Day 3: the ambassadors Joao Simao (22.1 million) and Patrick Leonard (11.35 million), team partypoker member Philipp Gruissem (10.75 million), and team online's Josip Simunic (2.6 million).
Simao is enjoying a very successful trip thus far after a 2nd and 4th place finish in the two €25,000 Super High Rollers. The Brazilian is in prime position for another big payday.
Renato Nomura, Roberto Romanello and Dzmitry Urbanovich were less fortunate, and all busted well before the money.
Among the big names that missed out on a payday of at least €10,300 were Orpen Kisacikoglu, Andrei Boghean, Steve O'Dwyer, Martin Finger, Manig Loeser, Dominik Nitsche, Michael Tureniec, Barny Boatman, Bertrand Grospellier, Dietrich Fast, Paul Newey, Viliyan Petleshkov, Samantha Cohen and Jan-Peter Jachtmann to name just a few.
Boghean was among the early casualties after running an ill-timed bluff, while Romanello lost most of his stack with nines against the pocket queens of Boatman. The latter failed to run up a stack, though, and ended up second-best with ace-seven against the ace-ten suited of David Urban.
Team partypoker was heavily involved in the money bubble process that lasted for more than two hours. The tournament switched to hand-for-hand mode five off the money bubble and Patrick Leonard scored a big double through Dominik Panka with ace-nine suited versus king-queen to leave the former PCA champion very short. Fellow partypoker ambassador Joao Simao finished off Panka as the last player without anything to show for. Panka was forced all in with the button ante, and his jack-seven suited ended up second-best to the king-five of Simao.
One final level was to be played after the minimum cash was locked up and the eliminations kept coming at an electric pace. Among those to bow out were Sander van Wesemael (126th, €10,300), Julian Thomas (123rd, €10,300), €50,000 Super High Roller champion Chi Zhang (122nd, €10,300), Ihar Soika (115th, €10,300), Ole Schemion (107th, €12,500), Sergio Castelluccio (106th, €12,500), and Mike Leah (102nd, €12,500). Castelluccio three-bet shoved out of the small blind with pocket fours only for initial raiser Andreas Walnum to snap-call with pocket aces.
All remaining 91 players have at least €12,500 guaranteed and aim for a spot on the final table. Action resumes at 12 p.m. noon local time with blinds of 150,000/30,000 and a button ante of 300,000.
The live stream feature table with hole cards will be broadcasted on the partypokertv Twitch channel on a security delay of 30 minutes, and the PokerNews team will bring you all the action from the tables until a winner is crowned.
Follow along with Day 3 of the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Germany on the PokerNews Live Reporting blog. There you'll find the seat draw for Day 3 of the Main Event, as well as the stream to follow along live.
