Defending Champion Timur Caglan Among Big Stacks After Day 1b
Day 1b of the 2017 PokerNews Cup €250 Main Event at the King's Casino in Rozvadov is done and dusted. The second flight drew a total of 106 entries including re-entries, bringing up the total number of entries to 193 thus far.
Only 18 players bagged up chips for Day 2 and Lithuania's Paulius Katinas stormed to the top of the leader board in the last two levels of the night, eventually claiming 546,000. He is followed by Bariskaan Cinitas (475,000) and defending PokerNews Cup Rozvadov champion Timur Caglan (354,500). Other big stacks and notables among the Day 1b survivors include Marek Blasko (325,500), Roman Tvrzník (146,000) and Paulina Rimkute (108,500).
Among those to take a shot at the guaranteed prize pool of €200,000 and fail to advance were 2016 runner-up Ronny Voth, 2017 World Series of Poker bracelet winner Sebastian Langrock, Timothy Weltner, Mike Hansen, Petr Targa and Karol Radomski.
At the conclusion of Day 1B, defending champion Timur Caglan said that he was feeling good. “For sure I want to win again!” he said, “I got very lucky today. I had many suck outs! There were playable not hands, not the biggest of hands, but playable hands. And every time I got lucky!”
We asked him what his plans were for the next few days before the tournament resumes on Sunday.
“Just relax,” he said, “I think I won’t play tomorrow!”
Johan Groot was among the victims of Caglan's hot run when the Dutchman called a blind-on-blind four-bet shove with pocket jacks and ended up second-best to Caglan's king-ten suited when a king appeared on the turn. Paul van Alst took a stand with pocket jacks as well, but Caglan had flopped two pair with king-queen and claimed his chips, too.
Heading into the last two levels of the night, Paulius Katinas was among the shorter stacks, but a big double against Michal Riczak saw the Lithuanian rise. Katinas called a raise and subsequent three-bet by Riczak with ace-ten and flopped top pair. Riczak check-raised an ace on the turn with just pocket kings and Katinas doubled with trips aces. In the last hand of the night, Katinas even sent Riczak to the rail after holding up with jacks versus ace-jack suited.
So far, 33 players ensured their seat for Day 2 and all those that failed can enter again on Day 1c and Day 1d. As usual two re-entries are allowed for each starting day and, in case any player bags up more than once, the best stack will be brought forward.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the tournament floor of Europe's biggest poker arena when Day 1c kicks off at 1 p.m. local time on Saturday August 19th 2017, and the fourth and final heat starts at 5 p.m. local time.