Ali Imsirovic Off to a Flying Start in the WPTWOC 8-Max Championship

The $3 million guaranteed WPT 8-Max Championship kicked off on August 1 and saw 465 players exchange $3,200 for the chance to become a member of the exclusive WPT Champions Club. Only 64 of those starters punched their ticket to Day 2 and nobody bagged up more chips than Ali Imsirovic.

Imsirovic is a phenomenal player, one with more than $8.9 million worth of live tournament cashes. He has a staggering 24 cashes worth six figures and one weighing in at $118,707. The man from Bosnia & Herzegovina is now on course for yet another massive prize.

He finished Day 1A with a 1,959,334 stack, over two million more than his nearest rival. Netherlands’ Roderick Kovacics is the man who currently finds himself in second place.

A whole host of stellar names progressed to Day 2 at the first attempt and did so in style. Bulgaria’s Dimitar Danchev ended the first of two flights with 1,665,678 chips, enough for third-place currently.

Recent Irish Open Online High Roller runner-up Simon Higgins has also got off to a solid start, his 1,417,928 stack placed him sixth on Day 1A. Guillaume Nolet (1,254,131) and Sweden’s Robin Ylitalo (1,219,041) are two more elite grinders who ended their Day 1A with a top 10 stack.

WPT #03 8-Max Championship Day 1A Top 10 Chip Counts

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Ali Imsirovic	Mexico	1,959,334
2	Roderik Kovacics	Netherlands	1,751,231
3	Dimitar Danchev	Bulgaria	1,665,678
4	Ognyan Dimov	Bulgaria	1,638,130
5	Edison De Oliveira	Brazil	1,523,340
6	Simon Higgins	United Kingdom	1,417,928
7	Luis Garla	Brazil	1,385,911
8	Gary Thompson	Ireland	1,254,562
9	Guillaume Nolet	Canada	1,254,131
10	Robin Ylitalo	Sweden	1,219,041

Plenty more household names are ready to go into battle on Day 2. These include Team partypoker’s Anatoly Filatov (973,720), Philipp Gruissem (556,541), and Hristivoje Pavlovic (462,793), Thomas Muehloecker (910,854), Niklas Astedt (700,503), Dominik Nitsche (535,168), and Marty Mathis (527,379).

Two of our own, Kristen Bicknell and Matthew Staples, busted at the death with Staples’ exit being the last of Day 1A.

Day 1B shuffles up and deals at 20:00 CEST on August 2 and concludes after the completion of the 18th 25-minute level. The surviving players from that flight join with the Day 1A survivors and hit the tables again at 20:00 CEST on August 3 for the tournament’s Day 2.

Satellites Galore

Don’t forget you don’t have to fork out $3,200 for the chance to win a huge prize today because there are $320 and $33 buy-in editions of the 8-Max Championship. The $33 version has a cool $300,000 guaranteed while the larger $320 Mini has a whopping $1 million up for grabs.

There are also mega sats galore running throughout the day, giving you the chance to turn a small investment into a shot at a seven-figure prize pool. Love poker? Join party.