Alex Foxen bet what appeared to be 38,500 from the button on a completed board of . Big blind Daniel Granov, who had checked, sighed and tanked a bit before asking the dealer to spread the pot. There appeared to be about 60,000 in there. Granov cut out calling chips and thought another couple of minutes before ultimately folding.
Zurab Ejibia shoved all in under the gun, and action folded to the button, where another player jammed, folding out the blinds.
Ejibia:
Button:
The flop was a good one for the player on the button, but the did bring a straight possibility for Ejibia, though he would need one of just two queens left. The did fall on the river, much to the player on the button's chagrin.
"He makes a straight?" he uttered in disbelief. "F***."
Ejibia collected 103,000, nearly all of his opponent's chips.
After being hammered down to just a couple of blinds following his queens taking a brutal beat at the hands of Zurab Ejibia, Gisle Olsen found at least one double and made his way to 55,000. He put those chips in over an under-the-gun open from Alex Foxen, and John Racener cold-called in the cutoff. Foxen tanked a bit and folded.
Olsen:
Racener:
The flop was safe for Olsen's sevens, but he had more cards to dodge after the turn. The river: .
They played until nearly sunrise, and by the time Day 1b of The Colossus €550 No-Limit Hold'em at World Series of Poker Europe ended at nearly 5 a.m. local time at King's Casino, just 12 players remained out of 210 entries.
Ozan Guruz leads the way after turning his 10,000 starting stack into 365,500, but the name that will catch everyone's eye on the leaderboard is second-place John Racener, who bagged 334,000 for a wide lead over third-place Karel Kratochvil (214,000).
Racener, who collected his first bracelet in this summer's WSOP, finds himself in the thick of the WSOP Player of the Year race and now has put himself in prime position to rake in a pile of points. He trails only Chris Ferguson and Ryan Hughes, both of whom are busily grinding here — and both of whom busted in this flight — in the standings.
Racener built a big stack in the latter stages of the 18-level grind, and he won a late race with an ace on the river when his ace-king got there against the pocket sevens of Gisle Olsen. Racener also eliminated Rex Clinkscales with just a few tables remaining, ace-nine over ace-six.
Alex Foxen (189,000), Viliyan Petleshkov (165,500) and Ryan Leng (141,000) also made it through.
Meanwhile here's a look at those who made it into the 32 paid places but went bust in advance of bagging time:
Place
Player
Prize
13
Sasa Stancic
€1,182
14
Gisle Olsen
€1,182
15
Vlado Sevo
€1,182
16
Erel Ozgar
€1,007
17
Roberto Romanello
€1,007
18
Roland Israelashvili
€1,007
19
Erol Gunenc
€884
20
Damiano Nigro
€884
21
Sven Lorenz
€884
22
Petr Gaydos
€884
23
Eilert Eilertsen
€884
24
Rex Clinkscales
€884
25
Albert Santander
€884
26
Aleksandr Pantiukhin
€884
27
Lee Richard
€884
28
Jan Mach
€800
29
Kristen Bicknell
€800
30
Tomas Soderstrom
€800
31
Vladimir Troyanovskiy
€800
32
Michal Drha
€800
Saturday will see two more starting flights go off, once again at noon and 6 p.m., with coverage here on PokerNews.