Filatov Has a Strong Day 2 to Lead the Final Eight Players in Event #12: €100,000 Diamond High Roller
Play has been halted on Day 2 of Event #12: €100,000 Diamond High Roller with just eight players remaining. It was an action-packed day that saw chips flying around from start to finish, mostly heading in the way of chipleader Anatoly Filatov despite taking a bad beat in the final hand of the night.
Filatov came into the day as one of the chip leaders and distanced himself from the field in one of the biggest hands of the tournament thus far. On a king-nine-seven flop, Filatov flopped a set of sevens against Daniel Negreanu and Manig Loeser who both flopped top two pair. All of the chips got in the middle and Filatov held on to climb over 20 million chips.
As the field broke to two tables, Filatov eliminated Thomer Pidun when he flopped a set of aces against Pidun's set of sevens. It wasn't until the river that the chips got in the middle on a super dry board. That set the Russian up well for the money bubble where he continued to apply pressure to the short stacks in order to chip up to over 50 million chips.
In the last hand of the night, Filatov found himself in another monster pot against Daniel Pidun and Jean-Noel Thorel. Filatov woke up with queens against short-stacked Pidun's eights and Thorel's ace-king. A queen on the flop looked promising for Filatov but Thorel made a straight on the river to double up and put a dent in Filatov's stack.
When the dust settled, Filatov managed to bag up a stack of 42,300,000 which is still leading his counterparts by a wide margin. Matthias Eibinger emerged into second place with a stack of 27,445,000 after finding a big double up against Phil Ivey on the final table. Thorel will round out the top three stacks after finishing with 26,085,000.
Final Table Seating Assignments
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | 15,385,000 | 64 |
| 2 | Chin Wei Lim | Malaysia | 20,460,000 | 85 |
| 3 | Matthias Eibinger | Germany | 27,445,000 | 114 |
| 4 | Anatoly Filatov | Russian Federation | 42,300,000 | 176 |
| 5 | Ole Schemion | Germany | 5,900,000 | 25 |
| 6 | Phil Ivey | United States | 2,375,000 | 10 |
| 7 | Danny Tang | Hong Kong | 3,900,000 | 16 |
| 8 | Jean-Noel Thorel | France | 26,085,000 | 109 |
The day kicked off with 25 players returning to their seats of the 39 total entries on Day 1. However, that number quickly escalated with the shallow stacks and the even more shallow starting stacks of the new players. Dominik Nitsche led the way with a total of seven entries by the time late registration was closed. Not far behind him was Eibinger who had five bullets over the two days. While Eibinger now has the second-largest stack in the tournament, Nitsche was unable to get anything going and was quickly eliminated.
Some of the others to burn through multiple bullets before the registration period closed include Kahle Burns, Alex Foxen, Orpen Kisacikoglu, and Rainer Kempe. A few legends of the game like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Tony G also took their shot at the €100,000 buy-in but bowed out before the money was reached.
Speaking of the money, it took nearly a full level for the bubble to burst. Sam Grafton started the hand-for-hand process as the short stack and despite doubling up once, still became the bubble boy. Grafton shipped his seven big blinds into the middle with deuces and was called by the ace-eight of Ivey. An ace on the flop and on the turn put Ivey in the driver's seat and Grafton was eliminated.
Ryan Riess and Paul Phua were eliminated within seconds of each other in the very first hand after the money bubble burst. That left the final nine players to gather at the unofficial final table until one more player was eliminated. It turned out to be an early day when Daniel Pidun was eliminated with 11:27 left in level 16 and the blinds at 120,000/240,000 with a 240,000 big blind ante.
The lion's share of the prizepool is still up for grabs with the final eight players all guaranteed at least €212,504. The first two places will each earn over one million euros with first place taking home €2,172,104. There are still two bracelet winners left in the field, albeit the two short stacks, Danny Tang looking for his second bracelet and Ivey in search of his 11th.
The cards will go back in the air at 2 p.m. local time and the final table will be streamed on PokerGo. That means that the PokerNews updates will also be on a delay to be in sync with the live stream. Make sure to follow all of the updates to find out who will walk away with a seven-figure payday along with a WSOP gold bracelet.