Bstieler Takes Day 1A Chip Lead; Smiljkovic, Mrakes, Kabrhel, Bendik Also Through
After twelve levels of 45-minutes each, Day 1A of the WSOP International Circuit €1,700 Main Event has come to an end with 96 players bagging their chips for Day 2 on Sunday, March 31. In total, 221 entries were attracted to the first opening flight and up to the end it was a close race for the chip lead. But when the final bag was sealed, Germany’s Peter Bstieler was the one to claim the Day 1A chip lead honors with 376,700 in chips.
The young German seems to have collected all his cashes here in the King’s Resort but one and reached a final table, finishing in sixth place in the €1,100 Monster Stack during the 2017 World Series of Europe Festival for €17,940 which was also his biggest live cash that has been recorded on the Hendon Mob.
Trailing Bstieler in the chip counts is another German player, Daniel Smiljkovic who bagged 366,500 at the end of the day. Smiljkovic registered late as he first had to play in the Monster Stack where he finished in sixth place for €9,225. After registering late, Smiljkovic seems to be sailing smoothly through the Main Event, eliminating Pilipe Pilipovi in between when Smiljkovic had turned a straight against Pilipovi’s flopped top pair.
Closing out the top five for today are Georgy Philippovich (317,000), Daniel Szymanski (309,000), and Yehonatan Behor (294,900). Other notable players making it through to Day 2 with an above average stack include Michal Mrakes (235,100), Rifat Gegic (197,400), Jan Bendik (196,600), Antonio Barbato (154,100), Martin Kabrhel (139,200), Marek Blasko (134,400), and Alexandre Viard with 125,000.
Unfortunately, not everyone could make it through today’s field and some of the players who were eliminated during the day include the defending champion Emil Bise, Oliver Heidel, Evangelos Bechrakis, Marcin Chmielewski, Michael Magalashvili, Jason Wheeler, Grzegorz Wyraz, Zhong Chen, Eyal Bensimhon, and Marcel Luske. But they will be able to reenter tomorrow, Saturday, March 30, as Day 1B will kick off at 2 PM local time.
With a €1,103,500 guaranteed prize pool, Day 1B is expected to a busy one as another twelve levels of 45-minutes each will be played. Late registration or reentering is possible until the end of the break after Level 14 on Day 2 which should be around 3:50 PM local time on Sunday, March 31.
Make sure to return right here on Saturday, March 30, at 2 PM as the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor until the final bags have been tagged for Day 2.