Dmitri Zatsik Leads Coolbet Open Main Event After Day 1a
The first-ever Coolbet Open Main Event hosted by Olympic Park Casino and Hilton Tallinn Park was a big success with 104 entrants ponying up the €550 buy-in. Tomorrow's action is expected to be even bigger for the second and final opening flight with the plethora of online qualifiers in the field.
More than half of today's field survived with 63 of the 104 players bagging chips. Estonia's Dmitri Zatsik ending the day as the Day 1a chip leader with 163,700 in chips. On Zatsik's tail are United Kingdom's Craig Timmis with 152,600 in chips and Norway's Jan C. Kongsgard with 150,300 in chips. Other players a bit further behind but bagged six-figure stacks were Mauri Dorbek (106,100), Aleksei Smirnov (106,100), Andrei Mjagkov (101,900), and Sergei Aleksejev (100,200).
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dmitri Zatsik | Estonia | 163,700 |
| 2 | Craig Timmis | United Kingdom | 152,600 |
| 3 | Jan C. Kongsgard | Norway | 150,300 |
| 4 | Mauri Dorbek | Estonia | 106,100 |
| 5 | Aleksei Smirnov | Estonia | 106,100 |
Players began the today's deep-stacked action with 30,000 in chips and battled it out for eight blind levels of 45 minutes each. Those bagging chips will enjoy 60-minute levels on Day 2 and Day 3.
Coolbet founder Jan Svendsen and his friend and Swedish entrepreneur Martin "Franke" von Zweigbergk had a friendly rivalry taking place, due to Coolbet offering odds on which player would both cash the event and last longer than the other.
Both Svendsen and von Zweigbergk started off hot by nearly doubling their stack. Svendsen eventually busted his stack and reentered and was eliminated for the second time.
Meanwhile, von Zweigbergk had trouble staying in his seat and was away from the table more than he was at the table. He eventually got it all-in with nine-six offsuit and after failing to win the hand, hit the rail as well. We will see more of this friendly rivalry tomorrow as both players shared the plan to reenter tomorrow's Day 1b field.
Coolbet invited Norwegian boxer Kevin Melhus, who was the first fighter to win a professional match on home soil, had mixed success bagging the shortest stack of the surviving players of 9,800 chips. During one of the breaks, Melhus shared his thoughts on both boxing and poker live on Facebook with PokerNews.
Day 1b of the Coolbet Open Main Event will kick off at 2 p.m. local time tomorrow with many new players and many of the same players from today that were unable to survive. As was the case for Day 1a, the PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the floor to provide complete coverage tomorrow and beyond until a winner is declared. Check out the Coolbet Open Live Reporting right here.
