Adrian Mateos Leads After Day 1 of the EPT12 Malta High Roller Event
The first of three tournament days in the €10,300 High Roller Event of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Season 12 stop in Malta attracted 164 unique players, 37 of which took advantage of the single reentry option throughout the ten 60-minute levels of play. Once the chips were bagged, just 99 of them remained with EPT11 Grand Final champion Adrian Mateos leading with a stack of 330,400 chips.
The Spaniard is followed by PokerStars Team Pro Jason Mercier with 257,300 and EPT regular Ihar Soika (252,000), as well as German three-time bracelet winner Dominik Nitsche (231,900). Other notables with above average stacks include David "MissOracle" Yan (200,400), former November Niner Felix Stephensen (197,600), Mukul Pahuja (189,500), Goran "mandza17" Mandic (184,800) and EPT8 Prague champion Martin Finger (179,000), who has also won two EPT High Roller titles in the past.
A plethora of other notables made it through to Day 2 including PokerStars Team Online member Isaac Haxton (143,000), who finished fourth in the €10,000 Single-Day High Roller two days ago, and the PokerStars Team Pros Ivan Demidov (103,200) and Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier (61,400). Their teammates Jake Cody, Andre Akkari, Theo Jorgensen, Luca Pagano and Liv Boeree were less fortunate and busted before the end of level ten.
Other casualties included €10,000 Single-Day High Roller Steve O'Dwyer, who called the shove of Hossein Ensan with 
for third pair only to end up second best to a rivered pair of kings by the German, who held the 
. Anton Wigg, Remi Castaignon, Ben Wilinofsky, Fabrice Soulier, Mike McDonald, Scott Seiver, Dimitar Danchev and Mustapha Kanit all fell on Day 1 as well.
Two spectacular hands highlighted the first day. In the first, Carlos Chadha flopped a set of sevens and Corey Hochman open-shoved his flush draw with Anatoly Filatov coming along and then jamming the turn. The other key hand of the day saw Mercier eliminate Mohsin Charania and Michael Ho at the same time to push for the overall lead.
Just under 100 players, 99 to be exact, will be returning to the tables of the Casino Portomaso at 12:30 local time on Friday. Registration and the single reentry option remain open until 15 minutes prior to the start. Day 2 recommences with blinds of 1,000/2,000/300, so all new entries would join the action with 25 big blinds. The redraw will become available once the registration is closed, and the plan is to play a maximum of ten 60-minute levels or until the last eight players remain, whichever comes first.
The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there to provide all key hands, so make sure to tune in then. The penultimate day of the poker festival in Malta will also determine the six finalists of the €5,300 Main Event as well. A look at the 16 remaining hopefuls can be found here.
Finally, check out this new PokerNews video featuring Team PokerStars Pro Theo Jorgensen: