Final Chipcount.
Sorry for the delay, but here they are. Final chipcounts of day 1b. There’s 90 players in this list … plus a mysterious ‘Mister X’ having one chip. We’re not going to find out what’s up with that until tomorrow.
Mikhail Mazunin – 203600
Alexander Staengle – 157500
Brian Lemke – 155400
Vladimir Velikov – 147800
Wojciech Lozowski – 143700
Fabian Quoß – 134900
Denys Drobyna Drobyna – 128900
Elio Prescot Fox – 123200
Rasmus Lund Vogt – 118400
Manuel Eric Bevand – 115600
Juan Carlos Alvadaro Rodriguez – 114600
Claus Bek Nielsen – 107800
Mathew Ernest Frankland – 107500
Alin Gabriel Grasu – 103400
Alexander Lahkov – 96600
Romeo Gomila – 95400
Ionel Anton – 91500
Jan Nelson Collado Y Fernandez – 91100
Simon Ravnsbaek – 89200
Jonathan Roy – 88600
Zoltan Szabo – 88200
Matej Kokalj – 86200
Rainer Kempe – 84800
Leonid Bilokur – 77900
Ben William Arthur Warrington – 77600
Orjan Skommo – 77200
Morten Per Varbak Mortensen – 75200
Luis Cruz Rodriguez – 74900
Ivan Kuziv – 74400
Vítězslav Pešta – 74000
Alexander Gerlach – 66500
Sergio Aido Espina – 65000
Charania Moschin – 62600
Jonathan Duhamel – 62500
John Joseph Eames – 60800
Hille Elisabeth – 56700
Faraz Quddus Jaka – 56100
David Patrick Peters – 54000
Andy Boy – 53800
Stephen Patrick Odwyer – 52300
Yann Dion – 50500
Gilbert Christian Diaz – 50000
Ilya Antonov – 49500
Tibor Janos Nagygyorgy – 49300
John Edward Andress 3 – 48800
Konstantin Puchkov – 46100
Manuel Blaschke – 45800
Ana Laura Marquez Esteban – 45100
Mark I Herm – 44500
Kara May Scott Tobin – 42600
Paul, Andre Guichard – 42500
Grayson Bary Ramage – 41700
Aleh Plauski – 41300
Erik Ingvar Olofsson – 40200
Eugene Katchalov – 40000
Hannu Toivo Olavi Peltola – 39500
Andras Fekete – 39400
Michael Kirk Larsen – 39000
Nicholas John Alexander Galtos – 38000
Sean Farshid Jazayeri – 37400
Harald Floberghagen – 35700
Anton Wigg – 35000
Kyle Joseph Frey – 33800
Michael Darel Benvenuti – 33700
Niall Farrell – 33700
Stephan Alexander O Kjerstad – 30900
Roger Patrick Hairbedian – 30600
Jonn Först – 30100
Pascal Dominic Hartmann – 29300
Robert Cezarescu – 28000
Yuksel Karayigit – 26900
Jose Carlos Garcia Y Malek – 26100
Oleksii Kravchuk – 24100
Eoghan O Dea – 22900
Lars Bonding – 21700
Andrei Nikonov – 20400
Jakub Maciej Michalak – 19600
Jason Mark Mercier – 18900
Alan Ryan Engel – 18800
Linh Tran – 18600
Bzron John Alexander Kaverman – 18500
Mads Amot – 17800
Thomas Ryo Muhlocker – 17700
Stjepan Jokic – 16600
Celine Bastian – 14900
Mathew Heap – 14000
Kristijonas Andrulis – 13300
Benjamin Hannig – 12300
Rasmus Agerskov Larsen – 11600
Amichai Barer – 5500
That’s It For Day 1b.
We’re done. Chips are packed. Players left. It’s just us here wrapping up day 1b, waiting for the official chipcount.
We caught up with Wojciech “Wozzo” Lozowski right after he stood up from his table. Even after long eleven hours in the poker room he was willing to give us a short interview.
Skyrocketing.
Alexander Stängle has been above average the whole day … as far as we know. He continuously built up his stack, seemingly determined to get to that top spot in the chipcounts.
Whilst we don’t have any hand details, we’re happy to see the bwin player doing well in the WPT Main Event. He’s slowly approaching a stack of 200,000 chips.
The Czech Republic has been a good country for him in 2012. In February he finished 2nd in a €500 Bounty tournament of the GCOP (German Championship of Poker) at the Kings Casino in Rozvadov.
Meet The PartyPoker Girls.
There’s the Royal Flush Girls, the bwin Grid Girls … and if you qualify through PartyPoker you’re going to meet the PartyPoker Girls.
Who needs words when there’s a picture:
Mikhail Still In The Chiplead.
Mikhail Mazunin has been day 1b’s chipleader for the last levels. At his table there’s another big stack, belonging to Denys Drobyna.
The two played out a hand recently, where Denys check-called Mikhail’s bet on a 
flop. Another club on the turn slowed down the action and the two saw an uninteresting 
on the river. Again it was check-call from Denys, who mucked his cards after seeing 
and therefor flopped flush from Mikhail.
Mazunin ~ 170,000
Drobyna ~ 137,000
Slowly Approaching The Last Level.
Day 1a saw less than half of the starters survive the nine levels. If today is going to end in a similar way, we’ll see a lot of all ins and calls in the last 70 minutes.
Right now there are 121 players sitting at the table. With 179 starting into day 1b we lost less than a third of the field so far. There are several short stacks out there, a lot of them won’t be able to get over the finish line. Blinds are soon 400/800 with an ante of 100. Due to the lack of eliminations so far the average stack is ‘only’ 50BB deep.
One of the most active players seems to be PartyPoker’s own John Först from Germany. Whenever we pass his table, he’s involved in a hand. He does so rather successful, although his stack dropped during the last level. Tibor Nagygyorgy two places to his left seems determined to stop the young German as he takes every opportunity to play against him. So far without the success he was probably hoping for.
Ever Heard About This Guy?
Wojciech “Lozo” Lozowski was invited by bwin to play the WPT Prague. The Polish player is a celebrity in his home country. Lead singer of the band Afromental, he’s probably had enough experience in the spotlights to cope with the pressure at the poker table.
We’ll try to get him in front of the microphone (so basically into his natural environment) for an interview. For now, watch Afromental’s video of their newest hit single ‘It’s my life’.
That’s it For Two Of Our Guys.
Mikhail Surin been hanging around with a short stack for the last couple of hours. An uncontested all in here and there but not much else.
Right after the dinner break he got his last 8,000 in chips into the middle and was up against [Ax][Kx] and [Ax][Ax]. So far so bad. Unfortunately Mikhail was holding [Kx][Jx]. Not much on the board to help him and our Russian exits the room.
Only moments later it’s Peter Griesmann’s turn to follow him. He was down to 6k, when he pushed [Ax][3x] from the small blind. The big blind found [Ax][Kx] and knocked our Austrian out. Simple as that.
Cards Are Back In The Air.
The chipcounts below are far from complete, but they should be more or less accurate. We focused on our PartyPoker and bwin qualifiers.
The overall chipleader seems to be Russian player Mikhail Mazunin, who’s closing in on 150k.
Zoltan Szabo – 63,000
Benjamin Hannig – 11,000
Jonn Först – 75,000
Luis Rodriguez Cruz – 23,000
Yüksel Karayigit – 17,000
Diego Tripodi – 36,000
Marek Prazak – 39,000
Lars Bonding – 53,000
Ivan Kuziv – 43,000
Peter Griesmann – 7,000
Heribert Ipfelkofer – 70,000
Marcus Balmert – 17,000
Michael Kirk Larsen – 60,000
Kim-Andre Torsvik – 45,000
Daniil Rumyantsev – 14,000
Oleksii Kravchuk – 41,000
Mikhail Surin – 8,000
Harald Floberghagen – 42,000
Kara Scott – 40,000
Andras Fekete – 31,000
Dinnerbreak.
After grabbing something to eat ourselves we’ll do some chipcounts. Cards are back in the air in an hour.
Piotr Franczak Active.
He managed to get chips very early on after taking a successful shot at French bunnyman Ilan Boujenah.
This time our Polish player couldn’t close the deal. On a 
[2x]
he got all the money in holding 
. His opponent Sergio Aido Espina was on a flushdraw with 
. While the turn didn’t change the situation, a third diamond on the river gave the Spaniard a flushdraw and a 50k pot.
Piotr Franczak writing to his friends about his recent loss
The Party is Over.
A couple of PartyPoker players are drawing thin. While Peter Griesmann and Mikhail Surin are hanging onto a small stack.
Vesa Leikos and Tomaž Kogovšek on the other hand couldn’t get a much needed double up.
Tomaž went all in holding 
and ran right into aces from bunny Paul Guichard. The board didn’t give much help to our Slovenian player, who left the tournament rather disappointed.
Some Stacks.
During the break we started looking around. And counting. There aren’t any huge stacks, 60,000 seems to be the benchmark right now (starting stack was 30k).
Alexander Stängle seems to have the biggest stack among our PartyPoker players, with 65k he could very well be overall chipleader. Fabian Quoss is hard on his heels with almost 60k.
Fabian Quoss
Here’s a fine selection of stacks:
Alexander Stängle – 65,000
Fabian Quoss – 60,000
Amatos Gomila – 40,000
Kara Scott – 28,000
Ivan Kuziv – 55,000
From WSOP to WPT.
Duhamel isn’t the only WSOP bracelet holder that took the re-entry option on day 1b. We just saw Brian Lemke entering the room. We caught him on camera last night. Videos are still being edited.
The turnout build up to a total of 167 players, with two levels of late registration left. Still, only five have left the tournament area so far.
We’re off to another break, returning with 150/300 blinds and ante 25. We may get some chipcounts during the break.
Bluffs, Re-entries and Pigs.
It’s always fun to be around Andras Fekete. If you followed this blog on past events, you probably remember him from WPT Malta.
During the break I grabbed him for a quick interview. Honestly, I don’t know what to say, I wasn’t even sure if he’s joking or not. But listen for yourself:
He gave me a longer insight on the whole pig thing. It’s a Hungarian tradition and the pig looks more like a sheep to me. If you’re interested, search for ‘mangalica’, as we’re done with that story here.
Duhamel – The Return.
During the break Jonathan Duhamel and Eugene Katchalov took their seats. The former was already playing yesterday on day 1a. So he’s actually entitled to play the freeroll today, where all busted players from day 1a get the chance to win another Main Event seat.
Winning almost $9 Million at the 2010 WSOP Main Event, Mr. Duhamel doesn’t need that kind of charity. We’re curious to see how his 2nd attempt will work out. Should he bust today, we’ll probably see him tomorrow for a 3rd time.
It’s Crowded In Here.
We’re up to 150 players on day 1b.
On almost every table there are multiple PartyPoker and bwin players. On table nine three of them are sitting right next to each other. Let’s see if Michael Larsen, Kim Torsvik and Daniil Rumyantsev are staying out of each others way. There’s Gaelle Bauman to their left, so we’ll keep a close look to that table.
After two levels of play we got our first 15-minutes break. When we return the blinds will be 100/200.
Update on Day 1a.
Having the final list of all PartyPoker and bwin qualifiers in my hands, I tracked down some who actually played yesterday. And made it through to day 2!
Here’s the three guys and their chipcount after day 1a:
Pawel Brzeski – 173,100
Eddie Tasbas – 78,600
Michael Aron – 15,000
Pawel is actually sitting in 3rd place of the chipcounts.
Rabbit Down.
One of them at least. Ilan Boujenah has the dubious honour to be the first person busting on day 1b.
Ilan 3-bets preflop to 1,250 (blinds 50/100), two players join him to see a [Jx][9x][2x] flop with two spades. After a called and raised c-bet it is Ilan and Polish player Piotr Franczak wo remain in the hand.
Before the turn is dealt, Ilan moves all in blind. Piotr awaits the turn (which is another jack), before calling and turning over [Jx][Tx] for trips. Ilan shows 
for a flushdraw but misses all his outs on the river.
Day 1b is Looking Good.
Level 1 has just started and we’re already up to 125 players. Late registration is open for the first six levels. Day 1a saw a total of 115 people starting the WPT Prague Main Event.
According to our list, there should be 29 players from PartyPoker and bwin at the tables. It will take us some time to find them all.
Rabbit Invasion.
No idea where they came from. No idea what they want. No idea how I should behave around them. They sure scare the shit out of me.
Kinda makes me think about those bunnies hopping around in teletubby episodes … which makes it even scarier!
Maybe that’s why I’m not sitting at the poker table. Better doing reports from behind the bulletproof windows of the media section.
Against better judgement I looked up their names:
You may remember Gaelle Baumann from this years WSOP Main Event, the others are Celine Bastian, Ilan Boujenah and Paul Guichard.
I don’t really want to, but will get more information about what’s going on.
Actually, it seems as there are more animals taking their seats at the tables.
Ready to go?
We are. It’s 1pm here in Prague. Like yesterday we’ll have a slight delay. The tournament area is slowly filling up. Funny enough, it seems that 80% of the players sitting at the tables have a PartyPoker or bwin gear/patch on them.
While I’m typing here, we got our standard ‘Shuffle Up and Deal’. So off we go.
Welcome Back.
We already took our seats in the media section of the Kings Casino at the Corinthia Hotel in Prague. As for now we’re the only people here … apart from that one guy who’s fixing the felt of a poker table.
Kickoff for day 1b will be at 1pm. Today we’re going to see most of the PartyPoker and bwin qualifiers at the WPT Prague tables.
If you’d like to read about day 1a, you can do so in yesterdays live blog.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments and follow us on Twitter for more poker greatness.
