Alisa Sibgatova Dominates Day 1b of Merit Poker Carmen Series Main Event

Day 1b of the 2024 Merit Poker Carmen Series $3,300 Main Event has come to a close here at the Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. Alisa Sibgatova finished the night with the largest stack across both of the first two starting flights, ending with 661,000. That stack will be worth just over 264 big blinds going into Day 2. She is most closely followed by Aleksandar Tot (559,000) and Mihai Tusnea (487,000). Sibgatova has just over $90,000 in career tournament earnings with her best cash of €23,210 ($26,078) coming from a deep run in the 2019 EPT Monte Carlo Main Event.

Day 1b Top Ten Chip Counts

Rank	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	Alisa Sibgatova	Russian Federation	661,000	264
2	Aleksandar Tot	Montenegro	559,000	224
3	Mihai Tusnea	Romania	487,000	195
4	Ruslan Bakhtiev	Russian Federation	454,000	182
5	Naji Tanuri	Lebanon	440,500	176
6	Edgard Raffoul	Lebanon	438,000	175
7	Sergey Bortsov	Israel	429,500	172
8	Umutcan Ipekoglu	Turkey	425,000	170
9	Jenya Gavrilovich	Belarus	364,500	146
10	Adrian State	Romania	358,500	143

Day 1b Highlights

Day 1b attracted a total of 166 entrants to bring the total field size from the first two starting flights to 351. Of those 166 entrants, 74 players were able to find a bag at the end of the night and advance to Day 2 after nine hour-long levels of play. Despite the deep structure of this event, featuring 60-minute levels and a starting stack worth 200 big blinds, the action was fast and furious from the start. Tot set the pace in the first level of the day after being on the right side of a brutal cooler that saw pocket aces cracked by quad queens. Tot would experience many ups and downs from that point on but would ultimately finish the night with the second-largest stack in the room.

Can Miral found himself among the chip leaders midway through the day after getting the maximum with pocket aces, but his momentum would come to a crashing halt later in the night after Razvan Sabau cracked his set of eights.

Sibgatova was under the radar for most of the day before rapidly accumulating chips in the last two levels. In one of the final hands of the night she would river a full house to crack Sari Haddad's turned straight and by that point she easily had the largest chip stack in the room.

Other notables to advance to Day 2 include Andrey Pateychuk (304,000), Fabio Peluso (146,000), Halil Tasyurek (52,500) and Aylar Lie (32,500). Peluso in particular had a tough start to the day, finding himself short-stacked early on. Later he would make an admirable comeback, doubling up twice in the span of just a few hands to preserve his tournament life and ultimately advance to Day 2.