Andrey Golubev Tops the Counts of Day 1b of the EAPT Main Event; Marie Kabaki Soft Bubbles
The second of four opening flights in the EA Poker Tour (EAPT) Main Event has come to an end with 29 players battling their way through the day from the 196 entries.
Those survivors will join the 32 that made it through Day 1a, plus the three players who qualified directly into the money online, for Day 2 on Sunday, September 15. It brings the cumulative total of entries in the Main Event to 436 with two flights left to play out.
Coming out on top of Day 1b's leaderboard was Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev with a respectable stack of 818,000 chips. Golubev was the benefactor of Lady Luck during Level 7 when his pocket queens cracked the pocket aces of his countrymate Nursiltan Satybaldin. Then, in the biggest pot of the day, Golubev slow-played top set to perfection and allowed Tornike Tchkonia to crash and burn after a failed bluff attempt.
Day 1b Top Ten Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andrey Golubev | Kazakhstan | 818,000 |
| 2 | Gevorg Khachatryan | Armenia | 601,000 |
| 3 | Dimitry Januashvili | Georgia | 450,000 |
| 4 | Davit Khalatiani | Georgia | 433,000 |
| 5 | Zoran Marich | Russia | 382,000 |
| 6 | Zaza Gachechiladze | Georgia | 359,000 |
| 7 | Ilia Kostenko | Russia | 354,000 |
| 8 | Soso Pachkoriia | Russia | 350,000 |
| 9 | Aben Zholgaliyev | Kazakhstan | 335,000 |
| 10 | Pavel Tobengauz | Russia | 299,000 |
Rounding out the top three stacks were Gevorg Khachatryan with 601,000 and Dimitry Januashvili with 450,000, the latter who won a big pot in the second to last level when his pocket jacks held up against Gor Musinyan's pocket tens.
Japanese player Marie Kabaki joined the field during the afternoon and came ever-so-close to making the money, but fell just short when her ace-queen couldn't crack the pocket queens of Georgia's Nikoloz Adeishvili in the penultimate level.
The unfortunate title of bubble boy went to Nikita Belovol when his ace-ten was no match for the pocket jacks of Zaza Gachechiladze.
Day 1c will kick off at 12 p.m. on Saturday, September 14, and will offer 30-minute blinds through. The last chance for players to qualify into Day 2 is Day 1d, which gets underway at 6 p.m. and has the fastest blind structure of all the opening flights at 25 minutes.
Be sure to tune into PokerNews to keep yourself up to date with all the action from the baize at the Eclipse Poker Club in Batumi to see who can run up a stack and make it into Day 2 and beyond.