Volkov Leads 57 Survivors After Day 2; Kabrhel and Gulas Jr Among the Big Stacks
The Spring Edition of the 2022 WSOP International Circuit at the King's Resort in Rozvadov is one step closer to crowning a champion in Europe's biggest poker arena. After ten levels of 60 minutes each, the bubble burst in the WSOP Circuit €1,700 Main Event and 57 players bagged up chips for the night out of a field of 648 entries.
Unlike the previous two editions in September 2021 and January 2022, the €1,000,000 guarantee was not surpassed despite 95 new entries on Day 2 and the top 71 finishers locked up cash prizes. American poker Jason Wheeler was eliminated on the money bubble and more than a dozen contenders were sent to the payout desk at end of the night.
Ruslan Volkov finished Day 2 with the chip lead after he won a large three-way all-in during the final level, which ultimately propelled his stack to 1,378,000. Close behind are the €2,200 High Roller ring event winner Fausto Tantillo (1,330,000) and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Martin Kabrhel (1,265,000). Another seven players claimed seven-figure stacks to their name and that also includes the 2021 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Josef Gulas Jr (1,034,000).
WSOPC €1,700 Main Event Day 2 Top 10 Counts
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ruslan Volkov | Ukraine | 1,378,000 | 86 |
| 2 | Fausto Tantillo | Italy | 1,330,000 | 83 |
| 3 | Martin Kabrhel | Czech Republic | 1,265,000 | 79 |
| 4 | Nedeljko Todorovic | Slovenia | 1,251,000 | 78 |
| 5 | Anil Ataoglu | Germany | 1,225,000 | 77 |
| 6 | Daniele D'Angelo | Italy | 1,081,000 | 68 |
| 7 | Nadir Kinno | Germany | 1,078,000 | 67 |
| 8 | Li Chen | China | 1,072,000 | 67 |
| 9 | Josef Gulas Jr | Czech Republic | 1,034,000 | 65 |
| 10 | Marek Sulc | Czech Republic | 1,005,000 | 63 |
Among the remaining hopefuls with a shot at the €160,500 top prize are also Lukas Zaskodny, Claudio Di Giacomo, Raoul Refos, Vincent De Neve, 2021 WSOP Europe bracelet winner Edmond Jahjaga, David Taborsky, Mihai Ciprian Hanu, and Day 1a chip leader Tibor Nagygyörgy. Stephanie Agostinetti is the last woman in the field and advanced with a stack of 354,000.
Notables in the money included the former WSOP Circuit King's winner Andrea Ricci, the WSOP bracelet winners Sebastian Langrock and Emil Bise, Elias Abou Saleh, Ioannis Chaitas, and Marius Gicovanu.
The Action of the Day
From the get-go it was a frantic affair as the marquee tournament attracted several dozen new entries and re-entries in the first two levels. Towards the end of the registration period, the field was already shuffled significantly with the departures of notables such as Ondrej Drozd, Sergiu Covrig, Pierre Mothes, Michal Mrakes, Josef Snejberg, Alexander Dovzhenko, Renat Bohdanov, and Dalibor Dula.
Pierre Trauer started the day as one of the big stacks but fell well short of the money when he his turned straight only had two outs to a straight flush against he flopped full house of Mario Colavita. The 2021 EPT Prague €5,300 Main Event champion Symeon Alexandris started his rise on the leaderboard soon after when he flopped two pair to knock out Dimitri Huley.
GGPoker ambassador Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier was one of several high-profile casualties outside of the money when his pair was outflipped by Nadir Kinno. Floor ten Zijthof was halted by Martin Kabrhel, who was his usual jovial talkative self en route to running up a big stack. Another female contestant was eliminated before the money bubble when Aylar Lie saw her pocket queens cracked by the ace-queen suited of Volkan Alkan.
Dorian Melchers fell victim of the hot run of Fausto Tantillo and Aleksandar Nanchev was flushed away by the queen-four suited of Kabrhel. On the money bubble, Marius Gicovanu and Petr Subik doubled while Jason Wheeler lost a flip with pocket jacks to the ace-queen of Nedeljko Todorovic.
More than two dozen contestants ran out of chips once the min-cash was locked up and Ruslan Volkov skyrocketed into the top spot thanks to a three-way all-in. He had the best of it heading into the showdown with pocket kings against the ace-queen of Yehuda Cohen and the pocket queens of Day 1b chip leader Birger Ohl. A king in the window sealed the fate of Cohen and Ohl to end the night in spectacular fashion.
Day 3 is scheduled to get underway at 2pm local time on Monday, April 22. The returning blinds in level 20 will be 8,000-16,000 with a big blind ante of 16,000. Another two days remain to crown a champion at the King's Resort and the penultimate tournament day will whittle the field down to the final nine hopefuls for the official final table.
Right from the start, the live stream action on the feature table will be broadcasted on a security delay of one hour on the King's Resort Twitch and YouTube channels. The PokerNews team will be back then to provide as many key hands as possible from all tables.