After two Day 1 heats Russian Andrey Saenko leads the charge to the 104 spots that get paid in this event. All told over €3.5 million is up for grabs with €775,000 reserved for first place. In addition to the purse the winner will also receive a bracelet from Shamballa Jewels valued at €10,000.
Enjoying the same upward attendance trend we’ve seen across Europe this year, EPT Prague bested the previous record set at 584 back in Season 6.
Saenko was the only player to crack the 200,000 mark and bested a Day 1A field of 488 to enter Day 2 in the number one spot. He’s followed by Denmark’s Mads Wissing with 178,300 and the UK’s Max Silver with 177,100.
Also finishing the day well-off chip-wise were Team PokerStars Pro Online's Jude Ainsworth (151,700), Swedish stars William Thorson (133,400) and David Sonelin (124,500), American Melanie Weisner (123,600), and Finn Ville Wahlbeck (121,500).
Those notables will join tough big-stack survivors from Day 1A like Chris Moorman, Jason Wheeler and Martins Adeniya as the remaining 407 players on Day 2.
Among those who fared less well but managed to secure a seat on Day 2 are Liv Boeree, Eoghan O’Dea, Steve O’Dwyer, Eugene Katchalov, Bertrand Grospellier, Johnny Lodden, and Jon Duhamel.
Headlining the list of busted pros was 2011 WSOP Main Event champ Pius Heinz and fellow Germans Boris Becker and Sandra Naujoks, former EPT Prague winner Arnaud Mattern and 2011 WSOP bracelet winner Fabrice Soulier.
Here are the top ten chip counts at the end of EPT Prague Day 1B:
1 - Andrey Saenko - 200,800 2 - Mads Wissing - 178,300 3 - Max Silver - 177,100 4 - Jude Ainsworth - 151,700 5 - Mauri Dorbek - 147,800 6 - Denys Drobyna - 145,600 7 - Danilo Donnini - 142,600 8 - William Thorson - 133,400 9 - David Sonelin - 124,500 10 - Paul Simmons - 123,800Photo credit: Neil Stoddart for PokerStars Blog
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