The first of four starting flights has concluded here at the 2024 Merit Poker Gatsby Gala $2,200 Warm Up hosted at the Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino in North Cyprus. Day 1a attracted 75 entrants, with only 30 players finding a bag and advancing to Day 2 by the end of the night.
Candido Cappiello ended the night with the Day 1a chip lead, finishing with 694,500, a stack worth 232 big blinds going into Day 2. Cappiello is most closely folowed by Alisa Sibgatova (511,000) while Aleksandr Kirichenko (490,000) rounds out the top three. Cappiello was a massive chip leader midway through the day after eliminating Abdullah Alajmi, who was at the top of the counts for most of the early parts of the day. From that point on Cappiello never looked back, and was among the chip leaders for the rest of the night.
Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Candido Cappiello | Italy | 694,500 | 232 |
| 2 | Alisa Sibgatova | Russian Federation | 511,000 | 170 |
| 3 | Aleksandr Kirichenko | Russian Federation | 490,000 | 163 |
| 4 | Sinan Unlu | Turkey | 397,500 | 133 |
| 5 | Simone Pascucci | Italy | 390,500 | 130 |
| 6 | Rayan Aljawhari | Lebanon | 343,500 | 115 |
| 7 | Daniele Grasso | Italy | 317,000 | 106 |
| 8 | Dumitru Pora | Romania | 308,000 | 103 |
| 9 | Nemo Koering | France | 306,000 | 102 |
| 10 | Nichan Khorchidian | Lebanon | 303,000 | 101 |
Day 1a Action
Despite a very slow structure, featuring hour-long levels and a starting stack worth over 150 big blinds, the action got off to a quick start and several massive pots took place in the opening levels. In one such pot, Kirichenko got his chips in as a huge underdog with top pair versus Hadi Khordbin's middle set. A miraculous runout saw Kirichenko make a running Broadway straight to earn a critical double up and from that point on the two players went in opposite trajectories. Khordbin was left short and eliminated before the end of the night while Kirichenko kept climbing, ultimately bagging the third-largest stack.
Sibgatova faced some early adversity after losing her first bullet to Lachezar Petkov, who had rivered a flush to pull ahead of Sibgatova's two pair. Sibgatova wasted little time reentering and fared much better on her second bullet. On Level 7 she knocked out Erdal Gulseven with pocket kings en route to finishing the day with the second-largest stack.
More notables to make it through Day 1a with chips include Nichan Khorchidian (303,000), Jeremy Saderne (195,000) and Simone Andrian (143,500), Others who joined the Day 1a field but were unable to find a bag include Lachezar Petkov and Alessio Isaia.
Day 1b begins tomorrow at noon local time, featuring the same structure as Day 1a. As always, Stay tuned for more coverage as PokerNews brings you all the action from the remainder of the festival.
