Daniil Kiselev Leads After Day 1 of the High Roller, Sebastian Malec and Randy Lew in Contention
While the record-breaking €1,100 Main Event of the 2017 PokerStars Festival Rozvadov saw more than 500 players return to the tables at the poker arena in the King's Casino, the next highlight was gearing up soon after. Day 1 of the €2,200 High Roller got underway with four tables, but that soon increased with big names dropping out of one tournament and jumping right into the action again.
Ultimately, 95 unique players entered and took advantage of the unlimited re-entry option during the first eight levels of 40 minutes each. An additional 23 bullets were fired to create a 118-entry field with a prize pool of €228,920, and just 29 hopefuls remained and bagged up chips at the end of level 14.
Leading the field of survivors is Daniil Kiselev with 286,000, followed by Anestis Anagnostidis (239,500) and Dorin Rauta (236,500). Other big names made it into the top 10 overnight with 2016 EPT Barcelona champion Sebastian Malec (223,000), PokerStars Team Online Pro Randy "nanonoko" Lew (186,500) and Antoine Vranken (147,000).
Still in contention for the trophy and first-place payout of €47,929 is shared €1,100 Main Event bubble boy Pietro Errante Parrino (136,000), who was one of three players to get eliminated during the same hand and split the minimum cash. €5,300 King's High Roller runner up Eugene Katchalov is among the short stacks with 72,500, which also applies to Aviv Meiri (66,000) and [Removed:197] (42,000).
Among those to fire more than one bullet and failing to advance to Day 2 were Kully Sidhu, Rasmus Agerskov, Andrey Andreev, Jonas Lauck, Pierre Neuville and €5,300 King's High Roller champion Vladimir Troyanovskiy. PokerStars Team Pro Marcin Horecki also took part, but was sent to the rail halfway through the day.
The rise of Kiselev and Anagnostidis started with a three-way all in. While Kiselev had pocket aces versus ace-king and the pocket tens of 2016 Colossus runner-up Jiri Horak, Anagnostidis was at risk with jacks against the pocket eights of Tomas Soderstrom and the pocket kings of Leonardo Mancuso. A jack appeared on the river to save the Greek and from then on the stack only knew one direction.
Lew went on a hot run and sent several players to the rise including Neuville, while Boris Kuzmanovic took care of Marcin Chmielewski with pocket kings versus pocket queens. Kiselev then scooped a massive pot by eliminating Viktor Lavi with pocket jacks versus ten-eight suited. Lavi had turned two pair and Kiselev had the overpair and straight draw when the chips went in, a seven on the river improved the Russian to a straight.
Several players ran out of chips in the last level of the night including Vlado Banicevic, and the money spots are just nine eliminations away when the action resumes at 2 p.m. local time with level 15 and blinds of 2,000-4,000 with a running ante of 500.
Day 2 Seat Draw
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 83 | 1 | Aviv Meiri | Israel | 66,000 |
| 83 | 2 | Pietro Errante Parrino | Italy | 136,000 |
| 83 | 3 | Michael Uguccioni | Italy | 75,500 |
| 83 | 4 | Emil Lukac | Slovakia | 61,000 |
| 83 | 5 | Robert Zipf | Germany | 76,500 |
| 83 | 6 | Oren Rosen | Israel | 116,500 |
| 83 | 7 | Daniil Kiselev | Russia | 286,000 |
| 83 | 8 | [Removed:197] | Germany | 42,000 |
| 84 | 1 | Leonardo Mancuso | Italy | 41,000 |
| 84 | 2 | Phillipp Teipel | Germany | 41,000 |
| 84 | 4 | Sebastian Malec | Poland | 223,000 |
| 84 | 5 | Paul Skipper | United Kingdom | 190,500 |
| 84 | 6 | Martin Bartos | Slovakia | 73,000 |
| 84 | 7 | Eric Mor | Israel | 106,500 |
| 84 | 8 | David Urban | Slovakia | 194,000 |
| 89 | 1 | Santosh Srinivas | India | 72,500 |
| 89 | 2 | Mirko Willsch | Germany | 50,000 |
| 89 | 4 | Antoine Vranken | Netherlands | 147,000 |
| 89 | 5 | Zoltan Ban | Czech Republic | 115,500 |
| 89 | 6 | Stefan Schulze | Germany | 172,500 |
| 89 | 7 | Randy Lew | United States | 186,500 |
| 89 | 8 | Boris Kuzmanovic | Croatia | 220,000 |
| 90 | 1 | [Removed:170] | Lithuania | 70,000 |
| 90 | 2 | Gediminas Januskevicius | Lithuania | 59,500 |
| 90 | 3 | Eugene Katchalov | United States | 72,500 |
| 90 | 4 | Dorin Rauta | Romania | 236,500 |
| 90 | 5 | Michael Koran | Switzerland | 63,000 |
| 90 | 6 | Anestis Anagnostidis | Germany | 249,000 |
| 90 | 8 | Jean Paul Zaffran | France | 94,500 |
The event will play down to a winner and the PokerNews Live Reporting team will be on the floor to cover all the action.