Unibet Open Cannes: Day 1A in the Books

First day of Unibet Open in Cannes kicked off yesterday in the luxurious Casino Barriere Le Croisette and with ‘shuffle up and deal’, one of the most renowned poker tournaments on European soil kicked off. With the buy in of €1,100 and cap of 400 players, the only real worry for the tournament organizers was what would they do with the surplus of players and Day 1A reinforces these fears.

Number of registrants for the first of two Day 1 flights went up to 225 players by the time Level 4 was in the books and late registration period had closed. With so much interest and already traditional bigger fields in later flights, it will be interesting to see the turnout today at noon when cards will once again be in the air for Day 1B. Those too slow or too lazy to grab their seats in time could potentially be left hanging in the air.

One of the more interesting names in the field, even if not because of his poker results, was Remko Rinkema. Rinkema is one of the poker media guys and he reports about poker events from all over the world. Unfortunately for him, he will be back to reporting in Cannes as well, as a classic Queens vs Ace-King coinflip sent him looking for a commentary booth.

Tournament schedule planned for ten levels to be played on Day 1A and as things went according to the plan, some players found themselves sitting with short stacks and looking to gamble it up to have something to return to on Day 2. This saw already well reduced starting field dwindle even further and when the last hand was dealt, fewer than 90 players were still holding on to their seats.

Of these 90ish, one man established a clear dominance – Dmitry Varlamov with 238,000 stack. Varlamov is no stranger to Unibet Open events and is in fact coming semi-fresh from his second place finish at Unibet Open Tallinn in May of this year. The only other player to finish over the 200K mark was the Swede Gustaf Karlsson with 208,200.

Although the field was planned to be capped at 400, TD John Scanlon seems to be seriously contemplating alternates need be, just so that all players are accommodated. We will see how the things go down and how big of a turnout there is today in Cannes, but – more the merrier. Nobody will be bothered by the inflated prize pool for sure!