Moving Day and Bursting Bubbles

(Photo: Elena Chadaeva)

If the opening days of an event are an often messy, noisy and busy affair, then day two’s can be considered mellow and relaxed by comparison. Players know the venue, know where they’re going and why – and any raucous early-afternoon behavior generally comes from new friendships and old rivalries settling in to their comfort zone!

Here in Rozvadov at the King’s Casino, the WSOP Circuit Main Event day 2 saw a glut of late re-entries boosting the numbers to 851 and taking the prize-pool to an unprecedented €1,2121,875 – smashing the €1million guarantee and making it the biggest circuit Main Event outside of the USA.

(Photo: Elena Chadaeva)

Moving day

Naturally, with huge money and the coveted Circuit Ring at stake, the action at the tables wasn’t slow in arriving, and with 30+ tables in play the shorter stacks were making moves everywhere in an attempt to reach a playable stack size. Similarly, the bigger stacks and most experienced players are thoughtfully picking their spots to exert maximum pressure – making for an exciting day’s viewing and even halfway through the event the tension is quite palpable.

Big names and big hands and big busts

Watching the stars fall is a double-edged kind of occupation: you want them to do well, but you know when they hit the rails you have the makings of good stories within the main ‘novel’!

One such ‘novelette’ saw 888poker ambassador, the lovely Sofie Lovgren, bust out when she decided to squeeze-shove her small blind against a button raise, only to find her A♣ 6♣ pretty much dominated by the A♥ K♦ of Ismail Kalkan. A bricked board and the Swede was out on the first level of the day, but she wasn’t alone - some 100 hopefuls busting out within two hours!

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When the 1st prize was announced as a whopping €232,241. 87, it was one of the youngest participants who was making his move towards the top, 19-year Spaniard Oriol Fernandez hiding behind a huge stack, and as always the big hands were meeting bigger hands…

(Photo: Elena Chadaeva)

…Germany’s Timo Neumann taking a big hit when his flopped set met with Romanian Mihai Manole’s bigger set on the turn – a devastating blow, but par for the course in the big elite events.

Even bigger hits were to follow, some of the stars heading for home as Staszko, Hof and Neuville all found the going too tough – but others could do no wrong!

Runner, runner…

Henning Wendlandt was on a roll, and seemed to win even when he was caught in the act, knocking out Martin Weiemann when his steal with A♦ 4♦ ran into the German’s pair of 9’s on the J♦ 3♣ 6♥ board. But when you’re running hot nothing can stop you, and the 2♥ turn and 5♠ river completed an unlikely wheel and sealed Weiemann’s fate, while his Austrian neighbor climbed the upper echelons of the chip-leaders.

Come dinner break, with 100 players left, it was a Spanish 1-2-3 leading the way, Ignacio Molina, Oriol Fernandez and overnight leader Francisco Arce out front, closely followed by the leading woman, Britain’s Renee Xie – her quad 7’s winning a massive pot just in time for dinner!

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Show me the Money!

With 87 places being paid, 10pm in the late evening saw the bubble approach – but it was a slow affair as average stacks were still 45BB deep and many players had no real need to slow down or speed up…but still, an hour and a half was interminable, nerves frayed as certain players clammed up and had to have the clock called on them in seemingly every spot.

The Bubble Boy

When the bubble finally burst, it was Jan-Dirk Wieckenberg who left empty-handed, his forced all-in on the big blind seeing his 8♣ 4♣ trying to compete with Peisert’s pocket queens, an unenviable task - even after a 4 fell on the flop.

Brick, brick ended his hopes, the stoic Wieckenberg still smiling and even stopping off for a quick espresso before exiting the King's Casino into the wintry Rozvadov night.

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Now guaranteed at least €3,759, the remaining 87 players was whittled down quickly – long-time chip-leader Francisco Arce chief among the 20 or so who had scraped into the paid places and then quickly made their post-bubble do-or-die efforts and coming up short.

As the night wore on, an extremely tired 47 players were left come the end of level 22 (at 6000/12000/2000ante), and the decision was made to run the final table of 8 over into Tuesday, King’s Casino comping whichever lucky players (and their friends) make it through tomorrow!

So who are the chip-leaders among the forty-seven waking up for day 3?

1. Han Kuo 1,673,000
2. Henning Wendlandt 1,600,000
3. Oriol Fernandez 1,595,000
4. Ivan Banic 1,366,000
5. Mihai Croitoru 1,200,000
6. Georgios Vrakas 1,084,000
7. Vadzim Lipauka 1,040,000
8. Alexander Lakhov 964,000
9. Marco Topic 854,000
10. Yehuda Cohen 841,000

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