Calamusa Tops Day 1a of the 2022 Winamax Poker Open Madrid €500 Main Event
After an action-packed first starting day, the return of the Winamax Poker Open (WPO) has been a thorough success. Some 369 entries were recorded in the 2022 WPO Madrid €550 Main Event in the first-ever stop at the Casino Gran Madrid in Torrelodones.
This surpassed the 360 entries of the previous edition in 2019 and was just shy of the 373 entries from back in 2017 to put things into perspective. If the first WPO Main Event were to set a new record for the live poker circuit, they need to attract at least 1,390 total entries and that seems certainly doable after a strong turnout on Day 1a.
When 20 levels of 30 minutes each had wrapped up, there was only one player who had turned a starting stack of 50,000 into a seven-figure amount. None other than Winamax Pro Pierre Calamusa topped the leaderboard with a stack of 1,023,000. Second in chips is Sebastian Penekes with 876,000 while Dennis Berglin was able to break into the French domination in the top ten and bagged up 669,000.
Other big stacks in the first of four starting days include Alexis Bouvier (651,000), Christian Ly (628,000), Hugues Mazerolle (557,000), Raffael Zarbo (522,000), Julien Ehrhardt (490,000), and Nicolas Vayssieres (334,000) to name several familiar faces of the European online and live poker scene.
While several Winamax sponsored players took to the felt today, only the Top Shark competition winner Loic "Winda" Debregeas joined Calamusa in securing a seat for Day 2 already. Debregeas ended the night with 161,000 in chips, which puts him in the middle of the pack. Other ambassadors such as Gaelle Baumann, Alejandro Romero, Guillaume Diaz, and Adrian Mateos were among the more than 300 casualties.
They were joined on the rail by Nicolas Maillaud, Julien Duveau, Alexis Gillot, Nuno Andrade, Cedric Danneker, Yann Lormel, and Romain Lefebvre all departed as well. In a field dominated by aspiring recreationals and poker pros from Spain and France, the online poker streamers "VinzHS", "PyroSC" and "CarbonRH" as well as known Spanish regular "Tsunamy" all failed to advance, too.
Calamusa started his journey via late registration after the first break and quickly ran up a stack before he commenced with his usual aggressive style to cement his spot near the top of the leaderboard. Seven years ago in 2015, he came out on top of a 959 entry strong field to earn the WPO Main Event title only a few weeks after he signed up as an ambassador for the online poker and sports betting giant.
Another known figure that could be found near the top throughout the day was Julien Ehrhardt, who can usually be found on the online poker tables. The Frenchman is a Red Diamond on Winamax and all high volume players with this status are invited to take part in the Winamax live poker events. Among his victims in the fast-paced six-handed actions was Antoine Whitehead, who lost a flip with ace-king versus jacks just prior to the dinner break.
Alexis Bouvier, Raffael Zarbo, and Dennis Berglin held onto bigger stacks that they started building in the opening stages while Alvaro Navarro had a plane to catch the following day but jammed numerous times to bag a top ten stack and postpone his travel plans for now.
All those who failed to make it through or focused on the usual fun side activities provided by Winamax such as the Padel Tournament in the morning and the Blind Test in the evening are expected to give it another shot at Casino Gran Madrid in the outskirts of the Spanish metropole.
Day 1b will kick off on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at noon local time and it will be the second flight with a duration of 30 minutes each. The PokerNews team will be back then to provide all the action from the tables.