12 Players Remain after Day 1a; Brunner and Dudley in the Lead
The first Non-Holdem event of the 2019 World Series of Poker Europe is Event #2: Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed and the first of the two starting days is in the books, here in King's Resort. A total of 169 players registered the event and after 18 levels of play there were just 12 of them left in the field.
Marcel Brunner is the player who bagged the most chips in Day 1a, advancing to Day 2 with 668,000, but the competition following him is very tough. Dash Dudley has already proved that Pot-Limit Omaha is his game for 2019, since he won his first bracelet during the summer in Event #52: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed for $1,086,967. Dudley bagged 657,000 chips and he will be in a great shape for another deep run in a PLO event during a WSOP festival. Other notables still in contention include Sebastian Pauli (544,000), Anson Tsang (360,000) and Dragos Trofimov (140,000).
Three players that are into the top ten of the 2019 WSOP POY race managed to reach the money, with Robert Campbell, David "ODB" Baker and Daniel Negreanu all getting paid and busting before the end of the day. The unlucky bubble-boy was Alexandre Viard who lost in 27th place and was the last player to leave Day 1a empty-handed.
Day 1A Payouts of Event #2: �550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (in EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Rok Lihtenvalner | Slovenia | 1,074 |
| 14 | Arunas Garunkstis | Lithuania | 1,074 |
| 15 | Robert Campbell | Australia | 908 |
| 16 | Micha Felner | Israel | 908 |
| 17 | David Baker | United States | 787 |
| 18 | Kan Ying | China | 787 |
| 19 | Netanel Amedi | Israel | 787 |
| 20 | Roland Israelashvili | United States | 787 |
| 21 | Robert Wirth | Germany | 787 |
| 22 | Daniel Negreanu | Canada | 787 |
| 23 | Dmitrii Shevchenko | Russia | 787 |
| 24 | Martin Staszko | Czech Republic | 787 |
| 25 | Ali Deniz Akok | Germany | 787 |
| 26 | Aaron Duczak | Canada | 787 |
Action of the day
Day 1a started with more than 40 players in the 8-handed tables, and the option of unlimited re-entries gave them the opportunity to play with a more loose strategy in order to build a big stack. One player who took full advantage of it was Shaun Deeb, who made eight re-entries in total and still didn't manage to advance to Day 2.
Other notables who give it a shot but busted through the course of the day were bracelet winners Ismael Bojang, Jeff Lisandro and Jan-Peter Jachtmann. One re-entry for Bojang and Lisandro, while Jachtmann played with just one bullet and they didn't manage to reach the money.
When the registrations closed there were just 40 players remaining in the field and 26 of them were to get paid, according to the event's payout structure. Alexandre Viard found a king-high flush draw with king-queen-five-three and two clubs in a seven-three-two flop. He was up against Sebastian Obermeier who was holding an ace-high flush draw plus a pair of jacks with ace-jack-jack-six. A red four and a red eight on the turn and the river, respectively, sent Viard to the rail in the bubble.
After the burst of the bubble, eliminations happened very quickly and 14 players departed from the field over the course of two and a half levels. Except the POY contenders, Arunas Garunkstis, Roland Israelashvili and Martin Staszko were among the casualties n the money.
Day 1b will kick off at 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday, October 15th, 2019, and another big field size is expected for the second and final starting day. Stay tuned to PokerNews for all the updates from the second bracelet event of the festival at Europe's biggest poker arena.