Darko Stojanovic Dominates WPT Vienna Day 1B

Level 9: 400-800, 100 ante

(Photo: Darko Stojanovic)

The Montesino casino became the Last Chance Saloon today. It was Day 1B and the word re-entry had been removed from everybody's vocabulary. There were no second bullets left, and the stench of cordite no longer filled the nostrils of the 41 players who took advantage of the second-chance clause. 233 players brought the overall attendance to 396 and the chip leader was Darko Stojanovic with 320,000 of them, dwarfing the 185,500 that David Brietfuss bagged up at the end of Day 1A.

It was a WPT brimming with quality poker players including a multitude of WPT Champions Club members. Sam El Sayed, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Andy Frankenberger, Mike Watson, Davidi Kitai, McLean Karr, Sean Jazayeri, Guillaume Darcourt and the man of the moment Scott Seiver making it an impressive nine former champions.


(Photo: WPT Champions Club Member Yevgeniy Timoshenko)

The range of quality players created some wonderful table draws including a table featuring Vanessa Selbst, Steve O'Dwyer, Mike Watson & David Peters and a table featuring Russell Carson, Bryan Piccioli, Todd Terry, Faraz Jaka, Griffin Benger and Basil Yaiche.

All tournaments need a pacesetter and when it comes to the WPT, that spot belongs to one man. Step forward and take a bow Sam El Sayed. The cigar chomping WPT Champions Club member destroys early fields for a living, and WPT Vienna was no different. He picked holes in the stack of Sean Jazayeri, who eventually exited after losing a flip with Jx Jx v Ax Kx, and also eliminated the dangerous Tobias Reinkemeier. El Sayed finished with 182,700 chips and he is in a great position to have another deep run.


(Photo: WPT Pacesetter Sam El Sayed)

Heading into Level Six it was still Sam El Sayed in the lead as we ran into a spate of high profile eliminations. Scott Baumstein ran A Q into the Ax Kx of the experienced Frenchman Michel Abercassis, Clemens Manzano finding a set to eliminate Vanessa Selbst, Johaness Strassmann falling at the hand of McLean Karr and Vincent Gomez eliminated Ana Marquez; the Spaniard running into the unfortunate set over set situation.


(Photo: Ana Marquez)

The set over set situation that Marquez found herself in is unfortunate, but what was to happen next is very rarely seen in poker. On a flop of A J 9 Sonny Anderson looked down at his cards and saw a pair of nines for bottom set, a few seats over and Jordan Lewis was quietly giggling to himself as he peered underneath his cards to see a pair of jacks for middle set, and Ferenc Gal was about to explode when he looked underneath his cards to see a pair of aces for top set. Three sets, three players expecting to get paid, one flop and only one winner in Ferenc Gal. What was even more amazing was the fact that nobody was eliminated when all the chips went into the middle. Gal eventually finished on 115,600 chips with one hell of an amazing story to tell. Andersen and Lewis, meanwhile, had the bad beat story of the decade.


(Photo: Ferenc Gal)

Moving away from flops that are as rare as Dodo droppings and back to chip leaders. Into Level 8 and it was the trio of Vincenzo Natale, Carsten Jeppe and Sam El Sayed who were leading the way. We all know about the WPT pedigree of El Sayed but Natale also has previous form after finishing 2nd at WPT Slovenia last year. Then right at the death it became the Darko Stojanovic show. He was moved onto the same table as Ed Kim, McLean Karr and Andy Black and he brought the biggest chip stack in the room with him. Stojanovic sat down with around 200,000 chips and in the final hour turned it into 320,000 after seemingly playing every pot, including the eliminations of Ed Kim and the outrageous elimination of Mclean Karr (see below).

So as ever, it is congratulations to our chip leader Darko Stojanovic. The Frenchman will be heading the group of 182 players when Day 2 commences at 13:00 (CET) Thursday, with 320,000 chips.