Renato Messina Bags Day 1a Chip Lead
Day 1a of the sixth edition of the OlyBet Kings of Tallinn €1,100 Main Event hosted by Olympic Park Casino and Hilton Tallinn Park was a huge success with 522 entrants ponying up the €1,100 buy-in.
This not already means that the €500,000 guarantee is already met but that also last year's record field of 375 entrants was smashed already by 147 entrants. The record will be further extended with many players planning to enter for the first time or re-enter on Day 1a and/or before the late registration period ends at the conclusion of the first blind level of Day 2 tomorrow.
Players began today's deep-stacked action with 30,000 in chips and battled it out for eight hour-long blinds levels.
More than half of today's field survived today's action with Italy's Renato Messina leading the way among the 264 survivors with 224,200 in chips.
Others bagging big stacks into Day 2 were Finland's Sargon Esfendiyari (195,100), Estonia's Urmo Velvelt (173,300), Robert Kallikorm (172,000), Lithuania's Daniel Belov (166,600), and United Kingdom's Carl Shaw (155,300).
Velvelt was picking up chips throughout the day but got off to an early start after he successfully picked off a bluff made by Audrius Navickas.
Meanwhile, Shaw won a huge pot against Swedish pro Jerry Odeen. Shaw jammed with a full house and got a call from Odeen with two pair to send his opponent to the rail.
Day 2 of the Main Event will kick off at 12 p.m. local time tomorrow with blinds at 500/1,000 and a big blind ante of 1,000. We will post starting seat assignments before the action resumes.
As was the case today, the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be back on the floor to provide complete coverage tomorrow and beyond until a winner is declared.
*Images courtesy of Ardo Kaljuvee / Kings of Tallinn.
