PokerStars Team Pro Fatima Moreira De Melo Through to Day 2; Ben Jones Claims Chip Lead
After more than fifteen hours, 143 players have bagged chips to take into Day 2 of the €2,200 EPT National High Roller here at the PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague that takes place in the Hilton Prague. After eights levels of registration and reentry time, 954 entries were collected, crushing last year’s number by more than 50%!
Claiming the Day 1 chip lead is the UK’s Ben Jones with 680,000 in chips. Jones was actually responsible for bursting the bubble in the thirteenth round of hand-for-hand play which lasted almost two hours in total. His victim was Daniel Ulvrell from Sweden who couldn’t win with pocket fours as Jones had turned a pair of queens.
Jones is closely followed by Artem Kobylynskyi with 679,000 in chips. The Ukranian player won a 473,000 pot during the bubble against Andrea Ricci which propelled him into the chip lead but lost some of those chips towards the end of the day.
PokerStars Team Pro Fatima Moreira De Melo had a great start of the day and even though she lost some of her chips at one point, she finished strong, bagging 418,000 in the end. Fellow Team Pro, Maria Konnikova wasn’t as lucky as her pocket tens failed to earn her a double-up when she shoved her last 17 big blinds against her opponent.
2013 WSOP Main Event Champion, Ryan Riess managed to double up twice during the bubble. First, he found ace-king on the button and shoved for less than twenty big blinds and was called by Miguel Iglesias in the big blind. Then he found aces against the queens of Alexandru Papazian. Ludovic Geilich was getting short and got his chips in with queens against Anton Wigg’s ace-five on the four-deuce-six flop. Wigg held a gutshot straight draw to burst the bubble but Geilich avoided a trey to double up in the final hand of the night.
Other notable players making it through to Day 2 include Kenny Hallaert, Dean Hutchison, Jeff Hakim, Dong Guo, Francois Evard, Davidi Kitai, Thorben Vellrath, Bryan Paris, Viliyan Petleshkov, Ben Dobson, Fahredin Mustafov, Amar Begovic, and many others. Anders Bisgaard was short during the bubble and was happy to make the money stages as he was able to put one single 1,000-value chip into a seal bag and will need a lot of help on Day 2 to ladder up.
Unfortunately not everyone could make it through, players like Javier Zarco, Jack Sinclair, Alexandre Reard, Ismael Bojang, Sam Greenwood, Jean-Noel Thorel, Markus Durnegger, Joao Barbosa, Daniel Rezaei, Norbert Szecsi, Matthias De Meulder, Guiliano Bendinelli, Sam Grafton, Steve O’Dwyer, Orpen Kisacikoglu, Preben Stokkan, Jasper Meijer Van Putten, Frederik Jensen, Maxim Lykov, Joao Vieira, Max Silver, and many others failed to win their final all-ins.
Play will continue at noon local time on Wednesday, December 12, in the Chez Luis tournament room and play down to a winner. When the 143 remaining players return, they will all already be in the money and the full payout details will be announced too. Level 18 features a small blind of 4,000, big blind of 8,000, and a big blind ante of 8,000. Who will win the €2,200 EPT National High Roller? Find out tomorrow as the PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the updates from the floor!