Vytautas Milbutas Bags Monster Chiplead After PokerNews Cup Day 1a
The first flight of the 2017 PokerNews Cup attracted 87 entrants, and after 15 levels of play today only 15 will be advancing to Day 2 this coming Sunday 20th August.
There were a host of familiar names at the King's Casino in Rozvadov, amongst them chiKKita banAAna, Sebastian Langrock and Philipp Zukernik, but at the end of play it was Lithuanian player Vytautas Milbutas who bagged up the chiplead of 696,000.
Twice today Milbutas eliminated two players in a single hand, including one where he eliminated local favourite chiKKita banAAna when Milbutas' tens cracked his opponent's jacks. However, Milbutas achieved an even more astounding feat earlier in the day, in a hand which demonstrated his psychic abilities.
Milbutas played the role of psychic in a pot where he had another player at risk. The player asked him whether he held sevens, and Milbutas replied: "No, I have a straight flush draw." Milbutas showed 
and his opponent showed 
. The board ran out 
giving a straight flush to Milbutas only moments after he said that he had a straight flush draw.
At the end of the night Milbutas reflected on the day.
"I ran pretty well," he said, laughing about the straight flush hand. "It's like Negreanu, he says all sorts of things while he is playing, but people only remember the stuff and his predictions where he was right.
"It was funny to do that then; I got lucky. For me it was pure fun!"
Asked whether he had run this well in a tournament, Milbutas said he had been playing a lot recently, especially in Cyprus.
"For the last three years I've played so many tournaments. I like how I play, but the big thing is that I'm really talkative at the tables. Because of that people tend to underestimate me, or overestimate themselves. But I've never run quite like that!"
A full list of players left after Day 1a is posted below.
Day 1b starts tomorrow Friday the 18th August at 5 p.m. local time. Join the PokerNews team live from Rozvadov for all the updates from the second flight of this year's PokerNews Cup.