Despite their dominant play it was upstart Russian player Vedzizhev Beslan who finished with the overnight chip lead with 132,200 chips. Close behind was Spaniard Jesus Cortes who built a stack of 131,200.
Wheeler ended with 129,000 while Moorman picked up 115,800.
The day began with a total of 234 runners including Team PokerStars Pros Martin Staszko, Theo Jorgensen, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Marcin Horecki and Pat Pezzin.
Dan “jungleman12” Cates, Gus Hansen, Roberto Romanello, Eoghan O’Dea, Jan Skampa, James Akenhead and Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz all made appearances as well.
German superstar Marvin Rettenmaier also took a seat at EPT Prague but was eliminated by Russian uber-casher Vitaly Lunkin near the end of the day. Rettenmaeir shoved with kings on a nine-high flop but had the misfortune of running into Lunkin’s set of nines.
Gus Hansen put on a great show as he played his standard loose-aggressive style that saw him yo-yo his way to 52,600 chips.
Martins Adeniya, James Akenhead, Vitaly Lunkin, Pat Pezzin, Michael Keiner, Eoghan O’Dea and Luke Schwartz all finished with significant stacks.
EPT Prague runs from Dec. 5-10 at the Hilton Prague Hotel with a winner scheduled to be crowned this Saturday.
Day 1b of the contest begins tomorrow at 12 p.m. local time with former champions Arnaud Mattern and Salvatore Bonavena scheduled to play.
Here are the top 10 chip counts from Day 1a:
1. Vedzizhev Beslan – 132,000 2. Jesus Cortes – 131,200 3. Sergey Baburin – 131,100 4. Jason Wheeler – 129,000 5. David D’Alesandro – 126,800 6. Mario Puccini – 117,100 7. Chris Moorman – 115,800 8. Michael Ruane – 111,500 9. Jonas Becker – 111,000 10. Filip Verboven – 110,500
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