By Lisa Yiasemides

Yesterday four titles were handed out and the biggest story of the evening was Christopher Johnson’s double results in the $215 events – one a $215 Turbo PKO, the second a $215 Mix-Max event.

There were also three 7-Max Weekender PKO events that kicked off last night, with all three two-day events and you can find out who bagged biggest in the opening flight, setting the bar ahead of tonight’s Day 1b. Before that though, let’s take a look at last night’s success stories.
 

Yesterday’s winners

 
$215 Mix-Max ($40K GTD)

There were 162 entries in the larger of the two Mix-Max events. First to leave was Timo Rene Albrecht in 162nd place. A total of 24 places were paid, meaning plenty of players joined Albrecht outside of the money. Christopher Andler, Anton Yakuba, Rising Star Leaderboard front-runner Andres Ojeda, Twitcher Jamie ‘jamnix90’ Nixon, online specialist Bryan Paris, and partypoker’s Jaime Staples were just some of the notable players to bust before the cash stages were reached.

Emil Olsson’s departure in 25th paved the way for Cody William Robb to pick up $509, with Fabio Sperling (22nd) among the other min-cashers. Team partypoker Richard Dubini managed to ladder a couple of places, cashing for $800 for finishing in 12th and Firoz ‘Mohamed’ Mangroe (10th) was another notable player to miss out on a final table seat.

Fabian Gumz

Renato Ribeiro (7th, $1,400) and Gabriele Lepore (6th, $1,800) were the first casualties on the seven-handed final table. They were followed out the door by Akseli Paalanen, Christopher Johnson and Ilie Smintanca-Januszewski who placed fifth to third. That left Kristoffer Skipper Rasmussen and Fabian Gumz to battle it out heads up, with Gumz prevailing to take the $9,712 top prize for the win.

$22 Mix-Max ($25K GTD)

The large field of 939 players wasn’t quite enough to reach the guarantee but it did mean nine and a half hours would be needed to for a winner to be determined. That person was Regis Cardoso De Andrade, who represents Brazil, one of the countries that has fared particularly well this series.

Norway did their best to challenge but had to settle for second and third places when Pierre Løvdahl fell at the last hurdle to finish runner up, and countryman Håkon Myklebust exited in third. Darren Carroll and Yuri Steketee completed the top five, both players taking four-figure results for their deep runs.

$215 8-Max Turbo PKO ($30K GTD)

Christopher Johnson managed to go all the way this time, taking a win in the tournament with the quickest runtime of the night. It took Johnson just four hours and 20 minutes to dispense of all of his competition, adding a second final table result after placing fourth in the $215 Mix-Max.

Johnson’s last opponent was fellow Canadian Marc-Olivier Grandmaitre, who took the very respectable runner-up position. Grandmaitre eliminated eight opponents, only two less than Johnson but the difference in value was almost $3,000-worth of bounties. Thomas Macdonald finished in third place, one step ahead of Jaime Staples, while the Netherland’s Camilla Reventlow took the last of the top-five spots.

Waheed Ashraf (6th, $782 + $506), Emrah Yildiz (7th, $599 + $250), Andre Christiansen (8th, $491 + $737) and Joel Dias (9th, $407 + $87) all featured among the final nine, with 20 of the 146 entries paid.

$22 Mini 8-Max Turbo PKO ($20K GTD)

It took significantly longer for the Mini to play down to a winner, on account of the 842 registrations that were counted before late registration closed. Lithuania’s Eimantas Lukas was the victor, coming out on top after six hours of battle across the virtual felt. He bagged the top prize after beating Germany’s Matthias Caase heads up.

Marcelo Valadao Da Silva Leite, Allen Shah and Alejandro Melo Saade all performed well, making it into the top five places, with 120 of the field seeing a return on their investment.

Continues tonight

 
$1,050 7-Max Weekender PKO ($500K GTD)

A $1,050 buy-in event online will naturally attract some quality poker talent and last night’s opening flight in the Weekender was no exception to that rule. Daniel Colpoys (3,066,876) bagged biggest, with a huge lead over poker superstar Alex Foxen (2,032,688), who placed second in the counts. Colpoys unsurprisingly dominated in terms of the cash collected in bounties so far too, eliminating almost eight percent of the field for $4,031 in cash, whilst Foxen’s running total stands at $1,375.

At the end of 18 levels, just eight of the 93 entries still had chips and the rest of them were WPTDeepStacks online Champion Jareth East (1,256,485 + $2,796), Kajetan Masiewicz (1,203,958 + $1,781), German powerhouse Dominik Nitsche (772,726 + $500), Alexander Tkatschew (536,656 + $1,125), Damian Żurek (333,126 + $375) and online crusher Almedin ‘Ali’ Imsirovic (97,985 + $1,125).

Imsirovic may only return with 7.5 big blinds on Day 2 but he is still in with a shot, something that most of the field can’t say about themselves. They will need to re-enter to stay in the game, with Niklas Åstedt (9th, $2,312) the last person to leave before Day 1a wrapped. The Swede has already banked enough in bounties to pay for this entry and a second bullet should he wish to fire again.

With $93,000 generated so far there is plenty of potential value up for grabs, with more than $400,000 yet to be collected in order to reach the huge half-a-million-dollar guarantee. There are two Day 1s still to play though – Day 1b tonight at 7:05 pm (BST) and a Turbo Day 1c tomorrow, Sunday September 5, at 4:05 pm. That is ahead of the second, and final, Day 2, which commences at 7:05 pm.

$109 7-Max Weekender PKO ($200K GTD)

Fabio Sperling’s productive night continued with the chip lead bagged at the end of Day 1a of the Mini event. He takes through 1,705,980 + $156 in bounties, as Jarl Gaute Bratteli accumulated 1,545,731 + $25 in bounties, which was good for second place.

Elham Nourzai (1,440,679 + $356), Aliaksei Tsimshenka (1,371,164 + $271) and Dimitrios Tsamis (1,370,880 + $156) rounded out the top five stacks, with 84 players advancing to the next stage.

The 533 entries mean $53,300 has been collected towards the prize pool, and as with its big brother, there will be two further Day 1s taking place ahead of Day 2 tomorrow. Tomas Fara (1,256,944 + $156), Jaime Staples (607,271 + $87) and WPT Knockout Champion Daniel Smyth (356,470 + $56) are just a few of the big names still in the running too.

$11 7-Max Weekender PKO ($50K GTD)

The final event of the night had the smallest buy-in but the biggest field, with 1,412 logging into their partypoker accounts to have a go at winning themselves a share of that attractive prize pool.

Ivan Mashentsov (2,440,437 + $23) just clinched the chip advantage by the end, narrowly beating Zakirhusein M Karim (2,434,469 + $49), who finished in second. Gregor Prizmic-Martini (2,352,621 + $29), Daniel Bader (2,173,870 + $23) and Niko Müller (2,106,429 + $18) all did extremely well too, in the closest-fought competition of the night.
 

Leaderboards

 
Player of the Championship

There is no change in the Player of the Championship Leaderboard, with Scott Margereson, Kristen Bicknell and Roberto Romanello all in the best position to challenge as the only players with over 200 points at this stage.

Rising Star

Andres Odeja remains at the top of the Rising Star Leaderboard but Boris Angelov has reclaimed his second-place position from Micro Main Event Champion Luiz De Melo, who drops down into third place.

Vyacheslav Nikulin holds firm in fourth place, while Pablo Roman takes the last top-five spot, relegating Vojtech Susta into sixth place.

The winner of the Rising Star leaderboard receives $10,000 – for the Player of the Championship it is $50,000! – and you can read more about both by clicking here.
 

Tonight’s schedule