Vytautas Milbutas registered for the Main Event not long ago and was sat on a table with Mikhail Korotkikh, Christian Nolte and Andreas Klatt.
Nolte raised to 13,000 on the button and the big blind called. The flop came and the big blind check-called a bet of 8,000 before the appeared on the turn. Once checked to Nolte, the German bet 50,000 and that shut down all further action.
"Let's see here," said Mike Sexton when we inquired after his stack as the first break of the day got underway. "I'm losing about a hundred right now. Down a little bit.
"The very first hand I lost 150,000."
Sexton explained how he defended his small blind with and the flop came . Sexton checked and his opponent continued for 8,000. Sexton check-raised to 20,000 and his opponent called.
The turn was another and Sexton bet 30,000 and his opponent called. The river was the and Sexton bet 75,000 and his opponent called again. Sexton tabled his trip sevens but his opponent held for a full house.
"I was lucky he didn't raise me on the turn. If he raised me on the river I put him on Jacks."
Day 1A of the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Russia is taking place in the Sochi Casino & Resort, and Sexton says that he is loving the venue.
"It's beautiful. It's a fantastic property. No question about the venue. Very opulent."
And how exactly is his tournament going?
"I have a very quiet table. And if they say anything it's in Russian! So that's the difficult thing here. I like to talk, but if I say anything I don't think anyone one will understand me!"
"It's pretty much a one language country!"
Sexton sits on just under standing stack on the first break of the day.
The $10,300 High Roller is back underway and the penultimate level to register has kicked in with 96 entries, of which 64 remain. Felix Schulze doubled up his short stack with against the of Aleksandar Tomovic after spiking the [10d on the flop.
Yair Bitoun joked "finally the first hand I win today, after three levels," when he got it in with against on a flop of . Both the turn and river were blanks and Bitoun doubled to what appears to be 290,000.
The live stream feature table has also started and features Diego Zeiter, Vitaly Lunkin, Andrey Pateychuk and Alexandru Papazian amongst others.
The players have been sent in a 15-minute break, the first of the day. Six levels of 60 minutes each remain before everyone gets to bag and tag their chips.
Andreas Klatt and Christian Nolte were among the last to take their seats and happened to be on the same table, which also features Natalia Panchenko. Martin Weiemann was about to get there, too, but is currently waiting for a new table to open.
Josef Gulas won his entry to the Main Event in a satellite and quickly bumped up his stack by half a million. His table also features Yury Gulyy and Vitaliy Li, and those two were just involved in a small pot.
Gulyy raised to 10,000 from under the gun and Li called in the small blind. On the flop, Li checked and called a bet of 10,000 before the turn was checked through. Li's bet on the river forced a fold and that brought nis stack to around two million once again.
The players in the high roller are going on a short break, their first of the day.
Spilling over into the break was a hand between Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier who checked a flop to his opponent who bet 13,000. ElkY then moved all in for 34,300.
"You go flush?" asked his opponent.
"I can't tell you," replied the Frenchman.
His opponent eventually called but winced when ElkY showed for top pair and his opponent tabled . The turn and river didn't help him and ElkY doubled up.
Other players still in the tournament include Steve O'Dwyer, Pierre Neuville, Martin Kabrhel, Vitaly Lunkin, and Leon Tsoukernik. It looks like David Laka is the chipleader with over 425,000 in chips, but with over 60 players left it's still anyone's tournament.
More tables are opening in the Main Event to accommodate the growing field and one such table features World Series of Poker bracelet winner Michael Wang, Daria Feshchenko and Robin Hegele. The latter finished 27th in the 2017 WSOP Main Event and several other German players were also spotted in the tournament area.
Aleksandr Lebedev defended his big blind against a raise by Mike Sexton and check-called a bet of 30,000 on the turn. Lebedev also checked the river and Sexton tossed in a blue T-100,000 chip, which got the job done as Lebedev folded.