The Romanian amassed 143,500 chips over seven levels of play and is only trailing German Mario Puccini who picked up 159,150.
A relatively new addition to Team PokerStars Pro, Judet burst onto the poker scene when he won €2,000 side event at the EPT Grand Final for $247k. He also finished 22nd in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. He is currently third on the all-time Romanian money list with $794k in lifetime earnings.
Day 1b of EPT Loutraki drew 191 runners, which when added to the 145 from Day 1a, means a total of 336 paid €4,400 to play the tournament. Official prize pool information will be available tomorrow but it should be well over €1 million.
Vanessa Rousso, Arnaud Mattern, Randy “nanonoko” Lew and Jude Ainsworth were among the notable players who entered the day but by the time Level 7 expired there were only 130 players still standing.
Johnny Lodden, Eugene Katchalov, Jeff Sarwer, Christos Ntikos, Kevin MacPhee and Ainsworth all booked a seat for Day 2.
The remaining 232 players from Day 1b and Day 1a will reconvene tomorrow as they get closer and closer to the cash and eventually the final table. Day 2 will begin at noon local time.
Here are the top 10 chip counts from Day 1b:
1. Mario Puccini – 159,150 2. Toni Judet – 143,500 3. Jonian Antoni – 124,425 4. Grudi Grudev – 117,200 5. Christos Ntikos – 116,250 6. Geogios Zisimopoulos – 113,175 7. Vitalijs Zavorotnijs – 104,900 8. Paul Knebel – 90,974 9. Nicolas Chouity – 80,900 10. Michail Manolakis – 78,975
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