Miegel Claims Day 1 Chip Lead in the PokerStars WCOOP-48-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam]
Day 1 of the PokerStars WCOOP-48-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] has come to an end with 34 players making it through to the final day, all sure of an extra $5,443 for their bankrolls. The tournament originally had a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool set but due to the 192 players who reentered 75 times, 267 entries were collected to create a prize purse of $1,335,000.
Claiming a narrow Day 1 chip lead is Jakob "Succeeed" Miegel from Germany who resides in Austria with 4,456,378. Miegel was near the top of the counts for most of the latter stage of the day but cemented the lead when he took out "girafganger7" and Ognyan "cocojamb0" Dimov out in one hand, before Pauli "Fiilismies" Ayras fell to him too, and then took a chunk out of the stack of "kimokh".
Miegel is closely followed by Bruno "great dant" Volkmann who burst the bubble when he eliminated Francisco "Tomatee" Benitez when he called the three-bet shove of Benitez who held pocket nines. Volkmann had picked up the rockets and even flopped a set to send the tournament on a break for today.
Completing the top five for today are Alex "dynoalot" Difelice (4,376,506), "Prof. Hitman" (3,839,907), and "NeedBeat" (3,827,026). But there are many big names left in the field, players like Thomas "WushuTM" Muehloecker, Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov, Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias, Yuri "theNERDguy" Dzivielevski, Christopher "lissi stinkt" Frank, Anatoly "NL_Profit" Filatov, Brunno "botteonpoker" Botteon, and Fabio "LFFF22" Freitas all bagged an above average stack.
If you look at the bottom of the counts Simon "Igorkarkarof" Ronnow Pedersen, Mirza "zazano" Muhovic, Dimitar "KuuL" Danchev, Konstantin "krakukra" Maslak, Preben "prebz" Stokkan, Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi, Chris "ImDaNuts" Oliver, Mario "t4t0PAGAU" Navarro, Maxime "Daghemuneguu" Chilaud, and Aliaksei "ale6ka" Boika are all coming back for Day 2 with fewer than 20 big blinds.
This is what the 34 remaining players are still competing for:
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1 | $127,410 |
| 2 | $95,458 |
| 3 | $71,519 |
| 4 | $53,584 |
| 5 | $40,146 |
| 6 | $30,078 |
| 7 | $22,535 |
| 8 | $16,884 |
| 9 | $13,981 |
| 10-12 | $11,577 |
| 13-15 | $9,586 |
| 16-23 | $7,938 |
| 24-31 | $6,573 |
| 32-34 | $5,443 |
When the registration period closed, there were 76 players left to try and make it into the top 34 but players like Adrian "Amadi_017" Mateos, Artur "mararthur1" Martirosian, Patrick "pads1161" Leonard, Christian "WATnlos" Rudolph, Conor "1_conor_b_1" Beresford, Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza, and Timothy "Tim0thee" Adams all fell at the wayside shortly after.
Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz was halted by Grafton who then busted before the bubble when he ran his king-queen into the ace-queen of Vezhenkov. The actual bubble ended up lasting almost 50 minutes with Danchev and Freitas doubling up in the meantime.
When the players return on Monday, September 4, at 7:05 p.m. CEST, they will finish the last 9 minutes of Level 21 which features a small blind of 25,000, a big blind of 50,000, and a running ante of 6,000. Play will continue until a new WCOOP champion can be crowned and the PokerStars Twitch Stream will be live with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton. The coverage will be on a security delay as the hole cards will be shown.
PokerNews will be back from the start on a similar delay so make sure to return to see who will win this tournament.
for Volkmann to hit a set and leave Benitez in need to hit a runner-runner.
on the turn and the 
on the river for Benitez to bubble the tournament while the rest was in the money and on a break for Day 2 on Monday, September 14.
for Vezhenkov to hold with the higher kicker to bust Grafton before the bubble.
for Difelice to flop a straight to bust Greenwood.
for Miegel to stay ahead with the higher pocket pair and even hit a straight on the river to bust both opponents.
