Image by Damien Cooper.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) has stopped in Vienna and it has been a record-breaking one. 555 players walked through the doors of the Montesino casino over the past two days. This broke the record set by, WPT Amneville, as the largest European field ever witnessed on the WPT.
As we walked around the room to evaluate who had turned up it was easier to name the top professionals who hadn’t. The room was literally bursting with the stars of the European poker circuit.
There was a British invasion led by the enigmatic Sam Trickett. He was the name on everyone’s lips today. He arrived late in typical superstar fashion and had the media hanging on to his every check, raise and fold. Jake Cody, Roberto Romanello, David Vamplew, John Eames, Jack Ellwood and James Mitchell were just a few of the vast number of players who had made the trip from the British Isles. Romanello, Cody, Eames and Trickett all made it through to day 2.
The first person to take the chip lead early in the day was Yulyan Kolev who ran up an impressive 160,450 in the company of none other than Bruno “The King” Fitoussi. Although he couldn’t hold on to the chip lead Kolev still managed to bag up an impressive 160,000 chips at the end of the day and we will see the youngster emerge on day 2.
During the Kolev chip lead WPT Venice winner Alesso Isaia was hot on his heels as was Tsabasa Manabe. The two of them shared the same table and tangled quite a lot. Both will be back for day 2 as Isaia searches for his second WPT title in a matter of months.
Then out of nowhere a local lad stole the limelight and for a long while we thought he would finish the day as the chip leader. Thomas Brauner somehow managed to flop the nuts while holding 
on a 
board while his opponent was holding 
. Not only were there more spades than in Bob The Builders garden shed but they also had 100,000 stacks at the time. Nature took its course and all the money went in on the flop and Brauner’s hand held up and he was our first 200,000 man.
Then late into level ten Ruben Visser won a monster flip when his pocket queens held up against his opponent’s pocket kings and his 237,600 became our biggest haul of the past two days.
Please make sure you join us and the 262 remaining players at 13:00 (CET) tomorrow for the best live reports in the business.
For a full commentary of day 1b live reports check out the live blog. Day 1b2 live updates are here.
WPT Vienna Day 1b picture gallery
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