It has been a fantastic day for Dmitry Yurasov (pictured) who began to build a stack almost from the moment he pulled up a chair. He takes through a massive 271,400 chips through – almost 200,000 chips above the average stack and 100,000 clear of Anatoliy Chen (170,200) who finished second in the counts.
Ernest Shakaryan (168,000), Gennadiy Lepskiy (137,000) and Alexsey Kozlov (132,900) also had great runs today and finished in third, fourth and fifth places respectively, of the 58 who progressed here at the stunning Casino Sochi.
Once again, the Main Event proved popular with notable players, drawing many big names to the felt today. Some of those bagged big too, such as Giorgiy Skhulukhiya (114,000), Mikhail Kovalyuk (113,000), Anatoly Zyrin (100,600), Karen Arutyunyan (96,400), Nikita Bochkin (81,000), Konstantin Streletskiy (78,300) and Vadzim Lipauka (74,900), who all finished above average.
Vlada Stojanovic (69,900), High Roller runner-up Aleksey Istomin (48,00), Nikolay Fal (47,100), Viktor Ustimov (45,000) and Vitaly Lunkin (pictured) finished on 29,100 found a bag but will have some work to do in order to climb up the chip counts.
It wasn’t plain sailing for everyone though – Anatoly Korochenskiy, Arik Filstein, Aleksey Gortikov, Rudolf Domin and Said Butba didn’t have the runs they were no doubt hoping for and failed to progress to Day 2. If that isn’t enough, late registration will remain open until the end of level 12 (around 4:30 pm tomorrow).
There are still two starting flights left to play though, so all is not necessarily lost. Day 1d is currently in play and tomorrow morning Day 1e kicks off at 9:30 am. Both features reduced blind levels and will play eight levels, in line with the first three flights.
Unlike today, and the days preceding it, there are not a set number of levels on the schedule. Instead, play will continue until the bubble bursts, promising a day of excitement and action right until the very end. All those who have chips left will return for Day 3 on Saturday, with a guaranteed cash under their belts.
There is still so much to play for and WPT.com will be here to guide you through all the action. See you back here tomorrow.
WPT UK photos courtesy of Tomas Stacha.