Mesdames et messieurs, we are finally finished with these pesky Day Ones!
A mammoth field of 238 made it to the Cercle Cadet poker club for today’s Day 1b, bringing the total field to 439 and generating a prize pool of €653,671. Forty-five places will pay out, with €140,539 going to the eventual winner. But we’ve got a long way to go before that happens.
The chip leader from today’s flight, and in fact chip leader overall by a massive margin, is Ruggiero Scommegna, whom you may remember from the recent Unibet Open Prague final, where he finishes second. Can he go one better this time? His massive 248,900 stack – over 50,000 clear of his nearest rival Quentin Lecomte who has 197,000 – would suggest that it’s a possibility. But it is still early days in the grand scheme of things, and anything can happen.
Also still in the mix from today’s field are serial Unibet Open do-weller Dan Murariu, serial everything do-weller Vladimir Geshkenbein, Scommegna’s nemesis at Unibet Open Prague Filip Verboven and Unibet Open Riga runner up Arkadiusz Olszowy.
The 67 Day 1b survivors will join with their 65 Day 1a counterparts at noon CET tomorrow, when they will be playing down to the money, and then beyond it to the final table. Full chip counts will appear on this blog overnight for your delectation. All you folks at home can be right there with them tomorrow, via the magical medium of the internet – we’ll be scribbling up hands and chip counts for the blog, and the live stream will be running from 2pm CET. Join us then.
