Kahle Burns Bags a Huge Stack After Day 1 of �50,000 EPT Super High Roller
It was an abbreviated opening day in the �50,000 EPT Super High Roller at the 2019 PokerStars EPT Prague but there was still no shortage of action. A total of 30 entries were recorded throughout six levels and 22 players have bagged up chips with Kahle Burns leading the way.
There was no real emergence of chip leaders until after the last break of the day. The Australian poker pro was the first to pull ahead of the pack when he cracked the aces of Orpen Kisacikoglu. Burns flopped middle pair and turned trips to catapult himself up the leaderboard. Two more late knockouts before the chips went in the bag resulted in Burns finishing with a stack of 899,000 chips.
It's been quite the ending to 2019 for Burns who has become a regular on the high roller circuit ever since the summer. Burns has numerous cashes over the past six months, most of which have come against some of the best players in the world. Many six-figure scores have launched his career earnings over $7.6 million and he is looking to add to that this week.
Ben Heath also bagged up one of the largest stacks with 646,000 after a cooler hand with Jean-Noel Thorel. Both players flopped a pair of aces but four clubs were on the board by the river. Heath held the nut flush and got a full double up against the second nut flush of Thorel. Finishing in second place on the day was Vladimir Troyanovskiy with 687,000 chips. Troyanovskiy already cashed in the �10,000 event earlier this week and will be looking to keep the momentum rolling.
As with the majority of high roller tournaments, the action was slightly delayed until enough players were registered to kick things off. Within no time, a full two tables were formed with many of the top poker players from around the world taking part. At one point, there was a discussion of reducing the number of levels played today in order to accommodate some prior commitments for the majority of the players. It was deemed that only six levels would be played and thus things wrapped up fairly early today.
Over the course of the day, nine players were eliminated including defending champion Matthias Eibinger. Five of those players chose to re-enter including Seth Davies, Juan Pardo, Sam Grafton, Orpen Kisacikoglu, and Tsugunari Toma. Late registration will remain open for the first two levels on Day 2 with players receiving a full starting stack of 250,000 chips.
Some other faces to keep an eye on when Day 2 resumes will be Chin Wei Lim (532,000) and Timothy Adams (508,000) as the only other two players with over 500,000 chips. Eibinger, Yang Wang, Daniel Dvoress, and Thorel all chose not to re-enter today but should be expected to return in the early going tomorrow.
The players should get a nice break this evening in order to come back refreshed for tomorrow. The cards will go back in the air at 12:30 p.m. local time with the blinds resuming at 2,000/4,000 and a 4,000 big blind ante. The suggested schedule indicates that they will play 10 levels or until just six players remain. The field is still expected to grow some more with unlimited re-entry options available.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back to cover all of the action throughout the next couple of days until a winner is crowned.