Moneymaker Fifth in Chips; Andreev Tops Strong Day 1a in Sochi
The third edition of the PokerStars EPT Open Main Event is off to a strong start at in the mountains of the Krasnaya Polyana region. Not far from the slopes of the former Olympic Winter games, the stunning Casino Sochi has become a fixture of the annual poker calendar and the EPT Open took place for the first time right here in 2018, followed by a stop in Madrid in June 2019.
Featuring a buy-in of RUB133,000 (~$2,040), the flagship event of the festival comes with a guaranteed prize pool of RUB70,000,000 and there is very little doubt that this will be easily surpassed. The first of three starting days and only flight to feature ten levels of 60 minutes each drew a field of 468 entries, consisting of 399 unique players and 69 re-entries.
Once all was done and dusted, PokerStars ambassador Chris Moneymaker found himself in the top five with an impressive stack of 226,300. Moneymaker entered the competition in the fourth level of the day and quickly more than doubled his stack. He then won a flip with queens against the ace-king of Viktor Shegay to join the chip leaders and remained in the top 10 for the remainder of the night.
Moneymaker already cashed in a Deepstack Side Event the previous night and his role to tour the United States and give away Platinum Passes for the inaugural PokerStars Players NL Hold'em Championship (PSPC) continues during the festival in Sochi as he hosts the RUB10,500 "Moneymaker's Road to PSPC" from October 11-13, and the eventual champion will claim the Pass valued at more than €26,000 for the 2020 PSPC in Barcelona in addition to the first-place prize.
At the top of the 166 Day 1a survivors is Andrey Andreev, who already boasts more than $720,000 in cashes on the live circuit. The Russian is a regular on the European Poker Tour and needed a second bullet where things really went his way. In the final hands of the night, Andreev turned a flush against the top pair and top kicker of 2018 EPT Sochi Main Event champion Arsenii Karmatckii to claim the overnight spotlight.
Second in chips is Anatolii Filonenko with 299,400 followed by Roman Novoselov (271,200) and Evgenii Shkolnik (253,200). Other big stacks and notables that advanced are Ghassan Bitar (216,300), Dmitry Vitkind (176,000), Ivan Sheptytskyi (154,900), Tobias Peters (132,900), and Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov (125,000).
While the vast majority of all participants hailed from Russia and nearby countries, several known names of the international poker scene also made the trip to Sochi. PokerStars ambassador Fatima Moreira de Melo was among them but the former Dutch hockey international was unable to bag and tag for Day 2 just yet. The same also applies to Gerald Karlic, Simon Burns, Daniel Carlsson, Daniel Belov, and Abraham Passet to name a few.
All those that left without anything to show for have another two chances to earn a stack for Day 2 as two turbo heats with levels of 30 minutes each are scheduled for Thursday, October 10th, 2019. Day 1b kicks off at 12 p.m. local time and Day 1c gets underway at 6 p.m. local time. Both flights will play ten levels and the survivors combine to one field for Day 2, which also locks up the late registration as soon as the cards go back in the air.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be there from start-to-finish to provide all the action from Sochi until a champion is crowned.
