All told 329 players advanced to Day 2, with big names like Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, ElkY Grospellier and former EPT Berlin winner Kevin MacPhee still in the mix.
With a total of 745 players this year’s German EPT stop boasts a prize pool of €3.75 million, with €825,000 reserved for the winner.
112 players will get paid with payouts starting at €7,500.
Blom, ElkY, Cody Among Stacked Pros
While Cengiz Ulusu and Calvin Anderson were the only players to best Day 1A chip leader Vladamir Geshkenbein, plenty of other notable names are stacked going into Day 2.
Swedish superstar Viktor Blom finished with 109,900, good for 50th place overall. Blom scored big earlier this year when he won the $100k Super High Roller event at the PCA, and is looking to replicate that success in Berlin.
WSOP bracelet winner Davidi Kitai finished in seventh place with 197,700.
The man they call ElkY fared less well, but takes $40,900 into Day 2.
UK phenom Jake Cody jumped up the leaderboard late in the day thanks to busting Sascha Brombacher. Cody had his opponent all-in on the flop and needed to hit a flush to overcome Brombacher’s overpair.
The river made the flush and increased Cody’s stack to over 110,000.
Inaugural EPT Berlin winner Kevin MacPhee advanced to Day 2, finishing the day with 139,100, putting himself in 22nd. Two years ago MacPhee won €1 million when he defeated a field of 945 here in Berlin.
Here are the top ten overall chip counts after both Day 1 heats:
Cengiz Ulusu (Turkey) – 242,800 Calvin Anderson (USA) – 205,100 Vladamir Geshkenbein (Russia) – 201,600 Jens Weigel (Germany) – 199,600 Mario Puccini (Germany) – 198,900 Davidi Kitai (Belgium) – 197,700 Joao Ribeiro (Portugal) – 196,600 Cesar Garcia Dominguez (Spain) – 184,400 Marc Wright (UK) – 182,600 Brahim Oubella (France) – 176,700Hometown Hero Heinz Headlines Busted
Among the 283 players who were forced from the tournament room this afternoon was the reigning world champion of poker, Germany’s Pius Heinz.
Heinz’s elimination hand was a spectacle involving a three-way preflop all-in with one player making quads on the river.
Heinz was in the worst shape with pocket queens before the flop, up against kings and queens. After two more kings hit the board the world champ was out and Bahadir Kilickeser, who made quads, shot up to over 120,000.
Also eliminated was EPT Grand Final champion Nicolas Chouity as well as Juha Helppi, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Mike Watson, Fabrice Soulier, Bryn Kenney, Mike McDonald, Steve O'Dwyer and Bruno Lopes.
Team PokerStars Pro members who failed to make it through the day included Eugene Katchalov, Olympic gold-medalist Fatima Moreira de Melo, Liv Boeree, Arnaud Mattern, Lex Veldhuis, Jon Duhamel and Victor Ramdin.
Day 2 action resumes tomorrow from Berlin and we’ll have the update in our Poker News Section.
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