Joachim Bold Claims Day 1b Chip Lead of PokerStars Championship Macau Main Event
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Day 1b of the PokerStars Championship Macau Main Event has come to an end with 226 players surviving the six 75-minute levels they faced today. A total of 321 hopefuls entered the luxurious City of Dreams resort today with their sights set on bagging chips by day’s end.
A late 6 p.m. start today gave locals some extra time to get to their seat before cards were in the air and a number of players who took part in this afternoon’s Single Day High Roller had the chance to get some more hands in after their luck ran out.
Germany’s Joachim Bold wielded the largest stack by the time the clock ran out, gathering the majority of his 130,500 stack when he picked up pocket aces and busted another player’s pocket queens.
| Position | Name | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joachim Bold | Germany | 130,500 |
| 2 | Yao Meng | China | 128,700 |
| 3 | Yuexin Wang | China | 121,100 |
| 4 | Yap Jun Wah | Malaysia | 114,700 |
| 5 | Roman Papacek | Czech Republic | 113,700 |
Chinese movie actress Yao Meng (128,700) and Malaysian Yuexin Wang (121,400) hovered very close to the top of the chip counts. A number of notable players secured a seat for tomorrow’s Day 2 as well including Elliot Smith (101,700), Sofia Lovgren (66,500), Manig Loeser (56,800), Winfred Yu (47,300) and yesterday’s Super High Roller Champion Steve O’Dwyer (25,300).
Several PokerStars pros joined in the hunt for a title, though many were lost along the way. Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew and Aditya Agarwal were able to stave off elimination but Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier, Chris Moneymaker, Celina Lin and Felipe Ramos saw their torches snuffed out.
Ramos was especially frustrated with how his day went. The Brazilian Team Pro hadn’t won a single hand he played early on, seeing his stack dwindle below 10,000. It seemed his luck was turning around toward the end of the night, scoring a massive double up with pocket aces against pocket kings, only to pick up two aces again the very next hand and get cracked by pocket tens.
The remaining 226 players from Day 1b will join the 117 survivors from Day 1a Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m local time as Day 2 kicks off.
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