Saliba and Mizrachi Among Day 1a Survivors
The popular 888poker LIVE event series has been heading to Sochi for the first time in cooperation with Poker Club Management and Casino Sochi to create a festival with more than three dozen tournaments and buy-ins ranging between 3,500 and 132,000 Russian Rubles (RUB).
Flagship tournament of the festival in the Krasnaya Polyana region is the 888poker LIVE Sochi Main Event, which comes with a buy-in of 62,160 RUB (approximately $888) and the guaranteed prize pool is 35,000,000 RUB (approximately $500,000). In addition to the prize money, the winner of the Main Event will also receive a prize package to the 2020 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas!
The first two of four starting days have concluded and some of the 888poker ambassadors have already been involved in the action. Out of 100 entries on Day 1a, Vivian Saliba turned her starting stack of 50,000 into 158,700 and five-time WSOP bracelet winner Michael Mizrachi was close behind with 155,400. Sofia Lovgren was less fortunate and joined the rail, the same fate also awaited Nikolay Fal, Mikhail Zamyatin, Aleksey Istomin, Pavel Kovalenko and Dmitriy Agafonov to name just a few of the Day 1a casualties.
Igor Reznik claimed the honor of Day 1a and current overall chip lead with a massive stack of 404,300, other notables that that advanced from the first flight were Maksym Lavrov (168,400), Petr Bartagov (114,000), Roman Gadzhiev (95,300) and Evgeniy Nekrasov (53,600).
Day 1b saw a field of 83 entries emerge throughout the 10 levels of 40 minutes each and another 32 players booked their seats for Day 2 already. Former WPT Prague champion Dmitry Gromov topped the second flight with a stack of 279,100 and was joined by such familiar names as Gor Kazaryan (242,300), Anatoliy Korochenskiy (240,000), Nikolay Fal (201,300), Dmitrii Sukhorukov (126,400) and Vahe Martirosyan (94,700).
The PokerNews live reporting team will on the floor to provide all the action as of Day 1c at 12 p.m. local time and throughout the remainder of the tournament at the stunning Casino Sochi.