Alexandru Mitracu Bags the Day 1b Chip Lead
Fifteen players qualified for Day 2 out of a total field of 97 entrants on Day 1a of the 2023 €560 Eurasian Poker Tour Main Event at 888poker Room in Bucharest. This last sentence could be copied and pasted for Day 1b, because once again, 15 players made it through to Day 2 out of 97 entrants.
On this very quick second flight of the tournament (two levels fewer than on Day 1a), Alexandru Mitracu ended up as the chip leader with 455,000 chips. But it was a close call because Ran Shahar, in the lead the whole day, bagged 440,000, so he's only trailing by three big blinds.
The difference was made after the last break, after which Shahar lost a few pots while Mitracu won a big one. "I had pocket treys in the under-the-gun position on a deuce-deuce-trey-ten-jack board against the cutoff and the big blind," he explained at the end of the day. "Everybody checked the flop; then I bet 16,000 on the turn. The cutoff raised to 43,000, and I called. On the river, he bet, I raised all in, and he went into the tank for five minutes. He called with king-ten".
End of Day 1b Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alexandru Mitracu | Romania | 455,000 | 91 |
| 2 | Ran Shahar | Israel | 440,000 | 88 |
| 3 | Stefan Necsanu | Romania | 374,000 | 75 |
| 4 | John Four | Bulgaria | 355,000 | 71 |
| 5 | Milovan Dinovic | Serbia | 349,000 | 70 |
| 6 | Cristian Sandu | Romania | 280,000 | 56 |
| 7 | Andrei Ciuca | Romania | 279,000 | 56 |
| 8 | Stefan Gheorghe | Romania | 266,000 | 53 |
| 9 | Alain El-Hajj | Lebanon | 253,000 | 51 |
| 10 | Alexandru Matei | Romania | 194,000 | 39 |
Stefan Necsanu bagged in third place with 374,000, closely followed by Serbia's Milovan Dinovic (349,000). Andrei Ciuca (279,000), Alain El-Hajj (253,000) and Alexandru Matei (194,000) ended the day with smaller stacks, but still big enough to be close to the average.
Nobody had very short stacks anyway, as the shortest ones — Gheorghe Velcea (117,000) and Dmitri Dudakov (124,000) — still have more than 20 blinds.
Tomorrow, Friday, November 10, the first part of the €560 EAPT Main Event will come to an end with the last two flights. Day 1c will begin at 2 p.m. local time and play 40-minute levels down to the final 15 percent of the field. Then, Day 1d will begin at 8 p.m., with 25-minute levels.
Stay tuned as PokerNews follows all the action until a champion is crowned.