Dumitru Pora jammed for 51,000 on the button and big stack Silviu Baltateanu called in the big blind.
Dumitru Pora:
Silviu Baltateanu:
The flop gave Pora top pair and Baltateanu a gutshot. After the turn, Baltateanu picked up some more outs and he indeed got there with the river.
While Pora grabbed his belongings, Baltateanu said "one second for the picture please" to the dealer, ready to grab his smartphone and snap a picture of the outcome.
Yet another hand with a player being all in for very few chips was checked down between multiple players and the board on table one eventually showed and Oleksandr Sharov was the player at risk. He tabled and was playing the board ... but Razvan Sabau had that beat with .
And just like that, the money bubble burst at 2.30 a.m. local time and the remaining 47 players are bagging up now. They will return at 3 p.m. local time to play another eight levels or down to the final table.
The full chip counts and a recap of today's action are to follow.
Eight levels were scheduled for Day 2 of the 2019 Unibet Open Sinaia €1,100 Main Event, but it would take until 2.30 a.m. local time for the day to wrap up after an extensive bubble period. Out of the 366 entries, only 199 hopefuls had returned to the poker tables in the New Montana Hotel and the end of the day turned into a roller coaster of emotions.
With just two spots away from the elusive min-cash of €2,085 at the end of the eighth level, tournament staff decided to continue playing until the bubble burst and one full level passed with several players being at risk forced all in and surviving under miraculous circumstances. Unibet Poker ambassador Dara O'Kearney did so twice while fellow Irishman Padraig O'Neill found himself forced all in from the big blind and he came out on top of a six-way limped and checked down pot.
Eventually, it was Oleksandr Sharov that fell short of the money when his ace-six was bested by Razvan Sabau and his queen-jack. A jack-high straight on the board gave Sabau the best hand and right after, all 47 survivors bagged and tagged for the night. They will be aiming to take home as much of the €366,000 prize pool as possible on the remaining two tournament days.
Sabau leads the field after Day 2 with 741,000, only a smidge ahead of Ran Shahar (735,000), Cristian Grecu follows in third place with 711,000. Further notables include Silviu Baltateanu (612,000), Gilles Huet (343,000), Jean-Serge Baril (318,000), Evangelos Bechrakis (228,000), Aku Joentausta (172,000) and Toni Judet (172,000).
Three former Unibet champions are aiming for a repeat victory, two of them on home soil. Traian Bostan (pictured above) advanced with 330,000, Martin Soukup bagged up 227,000 and Unibet Poker ambassador Dan Murariu has 132,000. Fellow ambassadors Espen Uhlen Jorstad (240,000), Daiva Byrne (23,000) and the master of short stack grind Dara O'Kearney (3,000) are joined by Alan "Hotted89" Widmann (72,000).
2019 Unibet Open Sinana Main Event Schedule
Day
Date
Time
Entries
Survivors
Further Information
Day 1a
February 13th, 2019
15:00
120
56
Play eight levels of 60 minutes, late reg six levels, 60-min dinner break after level four
Day 1b
February 14th, 2019
15:00
176
90
Play eight levels of 60 minutes, late reg six levels, 60-min dinner break after level four
Day 1c
February 14th, 2019
22:00
70
53
Play eight levels of 20 minutes, late reg six levels, re-entry for bustouts of 1a/1b
Day 2
February 15th, 2019
15:00
366
199
Play eight levels of 60 minutes each, the money bubble will burst
Day 3
February 16th, 2019
15:00
366
47
Play down to a final table
Final Day
February 17th, 2019
tba
tba
tba
Level duration 45 minutes with six remaining, 30 minutes long when three remain
Esports Battle Royale XII champion Kevin "Rotterdam" van der Kooi was among those that fell agonizingly close of the money with a chip and a chair story to tell and fellow esport streamers John "Swifty" Pyle and Andrey "reynad" Yanyuk also bowed out before the money.
Among the Unibet Poker ambassadors, it was a disappointing day at the poker tables for David Lappin, Monica Vaka, Alexandre Reard, Quentin Lecomte, and Ian Simpson. Lappin ran with king-jack suited into the pocket aces of Yanyuk while Simpson was haunted by his nemesis hand once more. On Day 1b, Simpson busted with queens and ran with queens into kings mid-way through the day.
Plenty of other notables came short in their bid for a payday in Sinaia as Alexandru Papazian, Katie Swift, Florian Duta, Narcis Gabriel Nedelcu, Andy Hills, Tomasz Kozub, Mateusz Moolhuizen, Mihai Manole, Luciana Manolea, Carmen Zainescu and Andrei Boghean all ran out of chips much sooner than they had hoped for.
While the electric pace of the eliminations before the dinner break halved the field in the first four levels, the action thereafter slowed down and culminated in the frantic bubble period. As a result, many players advanced with very short stacks for Day 3 and will be under immediate pressure on resuming blinds of 4,000/8,000 and a big blind ante of 8,000.
Day 3 kicks off at 3 p.m. local time and will aim to play down to a final table. The action of the feature table will be streamed on a security delay of 30 minutes on the Unibet Poker Twitch channel. For all the outer table action, PokerNews will be your one-stop-shop on the way to crowning another champion of the popular mid-stakes circuit.