WSOPE MONSTER STACK: Magalashvili Among the Leaders, Moshe and Clinkscales in Big Argument

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Oct 20, 2018 3 min read

Another day at King's Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic has come to an end as Day 1B of Event #5: €1,100 MONSTER STACK No-Limit Hold'em has wrapped up. The second of three flights saw 204 players take to the felt with just 56 moving on to Day 2.

A familiar is among the leaders, and it's no surprise that Michael Magalashvili (lead photo) from Israel has heaps of chips. So far at the 2018 WSOPE, it has been the year of Israel as they have been cleaning up on the poker tables. The first two events were won by players from Israel and Magalashvili made the final table in Event #3: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed. A successful Day 1B saw him throw 325,000 chips into the bag which was good enough for the second largest stack of the day. Magalashvili has made the King's Casino his home in the past couple of years with all of his tournament cashes coming in the same place.

The only player to bag up a bigger stack than Magalashvili was Asher Assis who ran up a stack of 349,000. Assis was hovering around the 200,000 chip mark for the latter half of the day, but a double elimination in the last hand of the night saw his chip stack soar to the top. Daniel Smiljkovic rounds out the top three counts with an equally impressive 289,000 chips.

Some other familiar faces moving on to Day 2 include Timur Margolin (260,000), Anson Tsang (205,000), Fahredin Mustafov (184,000), Stoyan Obreshkov (154,000), Bertrand Grospellier (79,500), Anthony Zinno (73,500), and Maria Lampropulos (56,500). Margolin, Grospellier, and Zinno are the only players to join Day 1A participant, Chris Ferguson, as WSOP bracelet winners moving on to Day 2.

The day began at 3:00 PM with players filtering into the Poker Arena and the numbers were quickly escalating above the 100-mark. Even with only one entry per flight, it didn't stop the chips from flying early as Viacheslav Ivanov was eliminated after just four minutes. The number of entries continued to grow over the course of 12 levels until late registration finally closed with 204 total entries.

At one point, a lot of commotion occurred at Table 99, and the brunt of it was between Rex Clinkscales and Asi Moshe. Moshe and Rafi Elharar recently played a pot with each other and Clinkscales suggested that Moshe and Elharar were colluding. He asked the floorman to keep an eye on the table.

Moshe didn't take the accusation lightly. The two started to get into an argument with curse words just rolling off their tongues. Clinkscales took it as far as threatening Moshe and wanting to fight outside. The floorman separated both players and pulled them away from the table. The banter continued off the table, and the tournament director was eventually called over to defuse the situation. Once cooler heads prevailed, Moshe was allowed to return to his seat while Clinkscales was given a round penalty.

Both Moshe and Clinkscales busted before the end of the day. They were far from the only ones to go bust. Jeff Madsen hit the exit before the first break for the second day in a row while Shaun Deeb took the opposite approach by registering in the 11th level of the day but was eliminated just three hands in. Some other notables to keep an eye out for tomorrow include Romain Lewis, Dutch Boyd, Rex Clinkscales, Allen Kessler, Asi Moshe, Cord Garcia, Manig Loeser, Martin Kabrhel and Viliyan Petleshkov.

2018 WSOPE Monster Stack Schedule

• Tags WSOPE WSOP Shaun Deeb Anthony Zinno Bertrand Grospellier Jeff Madsen Rex Clinkscales Asi Moshe Michael Magalashvili
• Related Tournaments World Series of PokerWorld Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE)
• Related Players Shaun DeebJeff MadsenBertrand GrospellierRex ClinkscalesAsi MosheAnthony Zinno