Merzhvinskiy Bags the Day 1E Chip Lead; Ferguson, Ramaty, Van 't Hoff, Hoekendijk, and Magalashvili Also Through
Day 1E of the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe Event #1: €550 COLOSSUS No-Limit Hold'em is in the books here at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov. A total of 317 entries were collected of which 33 made it through to Day 2, with 48 players getting paid.
The chip leader honors go to Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy who was at the top of the counts for most of the day and finished the day with 543,000. Merzhvinskiy started the day by eliminating Roland Israelashvili and Greg Hawes in the first level when he hit his flush draw on the river. He also took a huge chunk out of Grzegorz Domanik’s stack who was leading the chip counts for an hour or so. Again, the river was in Merzhvinskiy’s favor as he managed to hit the straight to best Domanik.
Trailing him in the chip counts is Dutchman Jasper van ‘t Hoff with 494,000. Van ‘t Hoff needed a few bullets in the previous starting flights and was very happy at the end of the day to have finally made it through. Closing the podium in third place is Dror Ramaty. Ramaty had almost 600,000 at his high point but lost a few key hands towards the closing stages including a double-up for Michael Magalashvili who also bagged for 163,000 in the end.
Other notables players that managed to find a bag when the day closed include Carmelo Vasta (485,000), Luca Bartoli (330,000), bracelet winner Albert Hoekendijk (233,000), Jakob Miegel (200,000), six-times bracelet winner Chris Ferguson (167,000), Sander van Wesemael (148,000), and Boon Seng Ang with 146,000.
Rafael Dahan and Antoine Rodrigues Guerreiro shared a min-cash as the bubble burst with their eliminations after a bubble that lasted about an hour in total as players on all the tables started stalling with 50 players left. Once Jona Wilmsmann was eliminated by Francesco Amatulli the real bubble was on. Rodrigues Guerreiro was all-in for a small blind, Itzhak Bitton and Klaus Schiefer both checked through the whole board from the blinds. In the end, it was Schiefer who was victorious and responsible for Rodrigues Guerreiro’s elimination. On the other table, Dahan was eliminated by Jakub Senk so Dahan and Rodrigues Guerreiro could split the min-cash for €399,50 each.
Day 1E Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (in EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | Ondrej Mar | Czech Republic | 935 |
| 35 | Andre Lommel | The Netherlands | 935 |
| 36 | Antonino Karman | Hungary | 935 |
| 37 | Yves Hallague | France | 851 |
| 38 | Giorgi Mevlupishvili | Georgia | 851 |
| 39 | Roman Sahin | Switzerland | 851 |
| 40 | Annina Hostettler | Switzerland | 851 |
| 41 | Aliaksei Ivanov | Belarus | 851 |
| 42 | Tomas Sujeta | Lithuania | 851 |
| 43 | Adel Kabbani | France | 851 |
| 44 | Frank Rohrmueller | Germany | 851 |
| 45 | Florian Guertler | Germany | 851 |
| 46 | Dimitrios Gkatzas | Greece | 799 |
| 47 | Tomas Balada | Czech Republic | 799 |
| 48 | Antoine Rodrigues Guerreiro | Belgium | 399.50 |
| 49 | Rafael Dahan | Israel | 399.50 |
Action of the Day
The day started with over 60 players in their seats which was a sign that Day 1E was going to be busier than all the previous starting days. And players were coming and going at a furious pace. After the first break, the number of entries was already up to 250 and still growing. Evangelos Vougioklakis had a pretty tough day and was short in the sixth level of the day but managed to win two all-ins in a row, his roller coaster ride wasn’t done though as he was also all-in during and managed to triple up to around 50,000. He made it through to Day 2 but won’t be too happy as he only tagged 26,000 in chips.
Ferguson earned a big part of his stack when he eliminated both Marco Leimbach and Kurt Schuetzenmeier with pocket tens. His opponents held ace-king and ace-queen but couldn’t find any help on the board. Sandor Ambrus eliminated Fabio Gamba and Netanel Amedi in one hand with ace-queen. Ambrus lost a bunch of his chips but managed to find a double through Wilmsmann when he flopped top two pair, shoved, and got called by Wilmsmann who held ace-queen. Ambrus then lost most of it again when he doubled Nachal Lowenthal who managed to hit two pair on the river.
With the bubble taking this long, Level 18 was played entirely and Miegel managed to double-up in the very last hand on his table. Miegel managed to crack Loewenthal’s pocket aces by hitting trip kings on the turn to give Miegel a nice stack for Day 2.
2018 WSOPE €550 The COLOSSUS Schedule
| Day | Date | Starting Time | Late Reg | Entries | Survivors | Further Information |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | Tuesday October 9th | 18:00 | ~23:40 | 154 | 12 | Play 18 Levels of 30 Minutes, top 24 spots paid |
| 1B | Wednesday October 10th | 18:00 | ~23:40 | 167 | 17 | Play 18 Levels of 30 Minutes, top 26 spots paid |
| 1C | Thursday October 11th | 12:00 | ~17:40 | 125 | 12 | Play 18 Levels of 30 Minutes, top 19 spots paid |
| 1D | Thursday October 11th | 18:00 | ~23:40 | 164 | 10 | Play concluded with 19:00 left in level 18, top 25 spots paid |
| 1E | Friday October 12th | 12:00 | ~17:40 | 317 | 33 | Play 18 Levels of 30 Minutes, top 48 spots paid |
| 1F | Friday October 12th | 18:00 | ~23:40 | 405 | tba | Play 18 Levels of 30 Minutes, the money will be reached |
| 1G | Saturday October 13th | 12:00 | ~17:40 | tba | tba | Play 18 Levels of 30 Minutes, the money will be reached |
| 1H | Saturday October 13th | 18:00 | ~23:40 | tba | tba | Play 18 Levels of 30 Minutes, the money will be reached |
| 2 | Sunday October 14th | 15:00 | - | tba | tba | Level duration increases to 40 minutes |
| 3 | Monday October 15th | tba | - | tba | - | Play Down to a champion |
The event has attracted 1,331 (including the Day 1F players) entries with 84 players advancing to Day 2, Sunday, October 14 at 3 PM local time. The remaining players of Day 1F will be added to the 84 players plus the survivors of the last two flights tomorrow, Day 1G and Day 1H. The PokerNews live reporting team will be roaming the tournament area to bring you all the action as it happens.
to provide Miegel with a pair of kings.
for Miegel to improve to trip kings, he now just needed to avoid an ace on the river which ended up being the 
for Miegel to be safe and make it through to Day 2.
for Senk to hold with the higher hole cards and eliminate Dahan.
board but they had to wait for the other table for them to complete the action. 
on the turn and the 
on the river. When the final card was dealt, Ambrus slammed the table and then didn't push the rest of his stack forward so the dealer could count his stack. The rest of the table told Ambrus Wilmsmann had him covered but Ambrus seemed to refuse to believe it. After repeatedly asking him, he finally pushed his stack forward. The dealer counted his stack and determined Ambrus had 140,000 in total which would leave Wilmsmann with 46,000.
.
and Ambrus scored the double knockout to rake in a massive pot.
for Ferguson's pocket tens to hold and eliminate both of his opponents as he had them covered.
on the turn to see the 
