By Lisa Yiasemides
Yesterday was the quietest day so far in the series, but though the number of events was smaller than in previous days, it allowed us to focus on two of the higher stakes games in the calendar, the $10,300 High Roller and the first Super High Roller Event of the festival, which had a mammoth buy-in of $25,500!
The live streams also got underway for the first time! WPT Club member James Dempsey provided the commentary and analytics over on Twitch, giving you yet another way of keeping up to date on all the action.
High Roller ($10,300)
Action was fast and furious from the off with just one hour and 34 minutes of play from start to finish! There were nine left when play resumed and that meant that the first to bust would bubble a seat at the final table. That turned out to be Artur Martirosian who was the last player to receive $26,250 before two tables became one.
Pauli Äyräs went out next, followed by Joni Jouhkimainen who three-bet shoved ace-queen in the small blind versus Alexandru Papazian’s button open. The Finn lost a flip to pocket-nines that allowed a very short-stacked Tim Adams to ladder a couple of spots before the final five were confirmed.
Sam Greenwood’s night took a turn for the better after he spiked a king with pocket-kings against Jorma Nuutinen and then the Canadian picked up rockets himself, managing to secure a double up against Papazian’s ace-king.
Sam Greenwood
Papazian started to stage a comeback but he hit a wall with five left after getting it in for a huge pot against Greenwood. Papazian flopped top two pair but he couldn’t hold as Greenwood’s run continued when he hit a better two pair on the turn, sending the Romanian to the rail.
Jorma Nuutinen exited next after losing a flip to Greenwood, who by this point was eliminating the opposition at an alarming rate. Rui Ferreira, who has already cashed in numerous events this series, locked up his biggest score of the festival for making it to third place.
Heads up and Matthias Eibinger was playing a 33 big blind stack against Greenwood’s 168 big blinds when they got it all in for the final time. It was a flip, but the Austrian was drawing dead on the turn to Greenwood’s full house, leaving the Canadian to scoop the biggest share of the $1,050,000 prizepool and Eibinger to take the runner up spot.
Continues tonight
Super High Roller – $25,500
It’s super high roller time tonight as the huge buy-in event continues with the second and final day playing out later this evening.
The live stream kicks off at 7 pm* and you don’t want to miss the conclusion of this one as the final table is set with eight remaining of the 98 starters. They generated $2,450,000 – almost half a million over the guarantee – and all of them are in the money, with at least $79,625 in the bag and $600,250 up top for the winner!
There are some big names among them with Elias Talvitie (805,899) taking through the chip lead. He is joined by Almedin Imsirovic (624,433), Charlie Carrel (402,051), Arsenii Karmatckii (327,162), Ivan Galinec (276,293), Christopher Hunichen (198,194), Wiktor Malinowski (171,947) and last night’s High Roller final tablist Pauli Äyräs (134,031).
Charlie Carrel
Sam Greenwood was the last player to bust before time was called on Day 1. He took $61,250 for 9th place, finishing just above Matthias Eibinger once again who took $49,000 for 13th place. Nick Petrangelo (14th) made a min-cash, whilst Michael Addamo was the unfortunate bubble boy. David Peters, Fedor Holz, partypoker Ambassadors Isaac Haxton and Nikita Bodyakovskiy, Steve O’Dwyer and Alex Foxen were just some of the big names who took a seat but didn’t find a bag.
6-Max – $2,650
Another tournament and another guarantee smashed with $732,500 amassed via 293 entries. That is almost a quarter of a million dollars above the $500,000 guarantee. Just 11 are still in contention with the second and final day playing out at 7 pm tonight.
Daniel Reijmer (1,867,920), Ole Schemion (1,730,023), Kfir Ivgi (1,034,303), Mark Radoja (713,159) and Nick Petrangelo (657,958) bring through the top five stacks and are best placed to contend for the $167,138 top prize. Rui Ferreira (454,064) nabs yet another cash despite coming back with one of the shorter stacks. All return knowing at least $11,354 is in the bag.
Daniel Reijmer
Dario Sammartino (12th), Kristen Bicknell (15th), Thomas Muehloecker (17th), Alexandru Papazian (20th), Patrick Leonard (21st), Dan Smith (24th), Christoph Vogelsang (25th) and Niklas Åstedt (26th) also reached the top 36 places that were in the money.
Mini 6 – Max – $265
The lower buy-in equivalent ran at the same time and clocked up 1,446 registrations and almost doubled the guarantee with $361,500 in prizes to play for. There are 56 players left, well inside the money with 204 places paid, and everyone has earned at least $886 with anything up to $54,226 still up for grabs.
Giovani Torre (2,641,498) bagged the chip lead with Aleksejs Ponakovs (1,932,970) and Dean Gilbert (1,833,187) are his closest rivals when Day 2 starts at 7 pm.
WPT500 & WPT Super 50 continue
Day 1e in both the flagship WPT500 and its ‘mini’ counterpart, the WPT Super 50 took place too. Team partypoker Dzmitry Urbanovich topped the 479-strong field bagging 406,443 at the end of 18 levels. Dean Arsenie (350,552) and Jonathan Therme (331,257) made up the top three stacks, whilst Patrik Antonius (285,440) also bagged big as another $239,500 was collected for the prizepool.
The WPT Super 50 drew another 1,356 players into the fold and of them Vitor Ribeiro (489,078) finished top in the chip counts. American pro Calvin Anderson tried his best to catch him but has to settle for second place with a very healthy 482,240 chips in play.
Coming up tonight
During both weekends of the festival there will be a Weekender event that plays out from Friday-Sunday. Starting tonight are the $1,050 Weekender and $109 Mini Weekender.
The $530 Ladies event, which begins at 7 pm and has a $50,000 guarantee, will feature our very own Alex Gray! Plus, there is the $55 Mini Ladies running alongside it too with a $10,000 guarantee. For turbo fans there are the $530 6-Max Hyper Knock-out and $55 Mini 6-Max Hyper Knock-out also taking place, and both are one-day events.
Leaderboard
Please note this takes into account results up to and including May 6
It has all changed at the top, as Paul Höfer moves into the lead following his third-place finish in the $215 Mini 6-Max Bounty Hunter on Wednesday (and following his earlier win in the $2,100 Knockout). He overtakes Leo Fernandez by five points and Alberto Meran moves up to third with his second final-table result, which pushes Zach Clark down into fourth.
*All times referred to are BST.