Thomas Vieth was all in from middle position for 86,000,000 and action folded to Majid Nadeem, who shoved as the bigger stack from the small blind.
Vieth, was the favorite for the stack boost as he had the and was up against Nadeem's . Vieth continued to survive as the board ran out with the .
A couple hands later, Nadeem was all in again David Farkas, who was once down to one big blind. His last 30,000 was at risk, While Nadeem has 56,000 total.
David Farkas:
Majid Nadeem:
Again Nadeem doubled up a table mate and was now firmly in the danger zone with 146 players remaining,
A mammoth-sized field turned out for the €1,100 Eureka Main Event inside the Hilton Prague, which has become one of the must-play events of the PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague.
Day 1a of the tournament attracted a whopping 959 entries, surpassing the 694 figure which came on the same day in March's edition of EPT Prague. Day 1b, which is just wrapping up also saw an increase and had a further 434 entries.
Day 1c and Day 1d have also begun to create a players list with 314 and 1 registering for the final two starting flights. Overall, 1,708 entries have been counted so far and is on pace to break the attendance record which stands at 3,155.
The Day 1a field generated €920,960 of the €1,639,680 prize pool, which looks to eclipse the €3,028,800 collected back in the Spring time.
Eureka Main Event By The Numbers
Event
Entries
Advanced
Prize Pool
€1,100 Eureka Main Event Day 1a
959
144
€920,640
€1,100 Eureka Main Event Day 1b
434
65
€416,640
€1,100 Eureka Main Event Day 1c
314
-
€301,440
€1,100 Eureka Main Event Day 1d
1
-
€960
€1,100 Eureka Main Event Day 2
-
-
-
€1,100 Eureka Main Event Day 3
-
-
-
€1,100 Eureka Main Event Day 4
-
-
-
Notable Names Struggle in Day 1a
A host of poker's top names turned out for Day 1a, but were unable to make into the final 15% of the field. The likes of Fedor Holz, Pierre Calamusa, Andrea Ricci, Kyriakos Papadopoulos and Jessica Teusl all fell short of navigating the first hurdle.
PokerStars Ambassadors Alejandro Lococo and Benjamin Spragg also hopped into the Eureka Main Event but suffered the same fate as the names above.
When the dust settled on Day 1a, Damir Savio ended the session as chip leader with a stack of 849,000. Tournament circuit regular Dawid Smolka also had a fruitful day on the felt and bagged 680,000 in chips. France's Aurelien Russo rounds out the top three chip counts and will begin Day 2 with a healthy stack worth 606,000.
The bubble burst in quick fashion, and the 144 Day 1a advancers have all locked up the min-cash which will be determined when the rest of the Day 1's play out.
Eureka Main Event Day 1a Top 10 Chip Counts
Place
Name
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Damir Savio
Italy
849,000
106
2
Dawid Smolka (pictured)
Poland
680,000
85
3
Aurelien Russo
France
606,000
76
4
Toni Kaukua
Finland
595,000
74
5
Fredrik Skarfstad
Sweden
558,000
70
6
Konstantin Farber
Germany
475,000
59
7
Yulian Bogdanov
Bulgaria
443,000
55
8
Thomas Channell
England
436,000
55
9
Peter Tordai
Hungary
424,000
53
10
Safwane Bahri
France
421,000
53
PokerNews will be on the ground for Day 1c and Day 1d of the Eureka Main Event, which gets underway on Friday, December 9 at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. CET respectively.