Jason Mercier Leads 30 Super High Rollers After Day 1
The biggest and final event of the ninth EPT season started today and had a massive €100,000 buy in. After eight levels of play just 30 players remain but there is still an option to re-enter for any of the eliminated players. Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier is the overnight chip leader with 1,183,000 chips and he's miles ahead of Sorel Mizzi who's second in chips with 885,000.
The day started with 16 players but that quickly changed as there was a line at registration bumping the total up to 25. Throughout the day players kept registering and Patrik Antonius was among the last to buy in for first time during the final two hours of play. Many other players had already done some re-entries at that point and it was Phil Ivey who did the first one. Sam Trickett had a dream start as he doubled up with a flopped full house against PokerStars Team Online's Isaac Haxton.
Full Tilt's Professional Viktor Blom jumped ahead to an early lead as he managed to pick up many big pots. Defending champion Just Bonomo stepped into the spotlights early on when he busted Phil Ivey's first bullet. Bonomo check-raised all in on the turn with a double gutshot and flush draw against Ivey's set and he managed to hit on the river. Two Russians were next to go as Mikhail Smirnov and Ilya Bulychev were eliminated. The former bought back in while Bulychev remained on the rail. Moments later another player was knocked out as Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel ran his pocket tens into Bonomo's queens.
Duhamel was among the players that chose not to re-enter right away. Joseph Cheong, Sergii Baranov, Tom Marchese, John Juanda, Steven Silverman, Bertrand Grospellier, Marc-Andra Ladouceur also decided to call it an early night after losing their initial buy in. Ivey was the only player that was knocked out twice. Mike McDonald was responsible for Ivey's second elimination as he won a coin flip with ace-king versus tens. Ivey is likely to return tomorrow morning to put another €100,000 at risk.
Fabian Quoss bought back in after getting knocked out by Mike Watson but his second chance went a lot better. Quoss won aces versus kings against Andrew Lichtenberger and ended the day with 797,000 chips. GPI Player of the Year, Dan Smith was knocked out by Faraz Jaka when he ran his jacks into kings. Smith also re-entered and ended the day with 177,000.
Mercier climbed to the top after winning two huge hands in a row. First he doubled up through Bonomo and then he won a pot off Blom. Mercier made sure he went to sleep with the chip lead when he busted former chip leader Bonomo. Mercier turned a straight and ended up busting Bonomo who held a flopped set. Bonomo bought in again and start tomorrow with 260,000.
Right when the day was about to end Vladimir Troyanovsky pulled off an amazing call. This was without a doubt the hand of the day as Philipp Gruissem yelled, "WHAT!!!" when the Russian pulled the trigger. Troyanovsky called all in for a pot-sized bet with two sixes on a jack-nine-deuce-ten-four board. Troyanovski's opponent, Dani Stern, showed ace-queen and the Russian had just made a very impressive call. Troyanovski survived the day with 737,000 and that puts him fifth on the leader board.
The action resumes tomorrow at 12:00 Noon and players can decided up until that point whether or not they want to re . So far 41 have bought in, seven of which have done a re entry. We would like to see you again tomorrow as PokerNews brings you all the live updates of the €100,000 Super High Roller.