Labryga Bags Day 1a Chip Lead in €1,100 FPS Main Event
It has been another action-packed day at the inaugural PokerStars European Poker Tour Paris, as the €1,100 FPS Main Event kicked off with its first of three starting flights.
Day 1a of the tournament attracted 796 entries and contributed €764,160 to the prize pool. The overall prize pool currently stands at €1,572,480 thanks to the entries in Day 1b and those who have already registered for Day 1c.
Day 1a wrapped up after 14 levels of play and saw 179 players bag and tag a stack for Day 2. Topping the chip leaderboard from the first heat of the FPS Main Event was Jean Labryga, who ended the night with 526,000.
Steeve Sultan (428,000) and Vardan Zakaryan (402,000) round out the top three chip counts but are still way behind Labryga's monster stack.
Other notable players to make it through to Day 2 include Kenny Hallaert (128,000), Kyriakos Papadopoulos (240,000), and Michael Rocco (362,000).
However, there were some other famous faces such as William Kassouf, Samuel Ju, and Tobias Peters who weren't so lucky and fell at the first hurdle. PokerStars Ambassador Ramon Colillas was also among the Day 1a casualties.
Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts
| Place | Name | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jean Labryga | France | 526,000 | 132 |
| 2 | Steeve Sultan | France | 428,000 | 107 |
| 3 | Vardan Zakaryan | Armenia | 402,000 | 101 |
| 4 | Michael Rocco | United States | 362,000 | 91 |
| 5 | Alan Ouegoasd | France | 346,000 | 87 |
| 6 | Damien Luis | France | 343,000 | 86 |
| 7 | Willem de Jong | Netherlands | 304,000 | 76 |
| 8 | Djamel Boutaleb | France | 290,000 | 73 |
| 9 | Dorian Decauche | France | 281,000 | 70 |
| 10 | Dawid Smolka | Poland | 281,000 | 70 |
Notable Hands on Day 1a
There were some big hands and massive coolers throughout the session. David Vedral slow-played his aces and flopped a set against Quentin Roussey who had flopped top two pair.
Petar Kalev and David Hareuveni also tangled in one of the biggest pots of the early stages. Kalev, who finished eighth in the 2023 PSPC, had some kicker issues which saw a 90-big blind pot head to his opponent.
Herve Mary then went from a below-average stack to one of the chip leaders. He was the winner of a three-way all-in, where he ended up with quad queens to crack an opponent's pocket aces.
French poker superstar Antoine Saout tried pulling off an ambitious bluff jam with ace-high but was picked off by Sweden's Alexander Ivarsson.
Chip leader Labryga nearly lost a chunk of his stack towards the end of the night. He was in a three-way all-in which ended up in a three-way chop to the dismay of Dragos Trofimov who was a huge favorite to triple up heading into the river.
The PokerNews live reporting of the FPS Main Event continues on Friday, February 17 at 12 p.m. for Day 1c, the tournament's final starting flight. After Day 1c is completed, the fields will merge for Day 2 which takes place the following day.