Andrey Andreev Leads PokerStars Festival Sochi High Roller
After an action-packed Day 1 of the PokerStars Festival Sochi High Roller, it is Andrey Andreev with 347,200 who leads the final 26 going into Day 2.
Just behind him is Vanush Mnatcakanian with 331,700. The pair are the only two players over 300,000, and are in fact the only two over 200,000, with their nearest competitor Dmitrii Deviatov with 179,700.
Today's event put the memory of the 26-player High Roller from the PokerStars Championship Sochi firmly to bed as a 96-player field descended on the Sochi Casino & Resort creating a prizepool of over 11 million rubles.
With players able to take advantage of a single re-entry should they need, many players did so including Russian regular Konstantin Puchkov, along with Nikita Kalinin, Valeriy Legchilo, Aleksandr Tudakov and Andrey Chernokoz.
Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov both registered after the dinner break, and enjoyed differing starts to the High Roller.
While Boeree toiled at starting stack for most of the day, Kurganov soared to over three times starting stack before clashing with fellow big stack Andrey Andreev.
Andreev held top pair, as well as straight and flush draws against Kurganov's over pair. The river completed Andreev's flush and Kurganov was sent to the rail.
Kurganov re-entered and bagged up 175,000 at the end of the day good enough for fourth in chips, while Boeree was unlucky to bust when her pocket nines came up against the pocket tens of Yakov Oranskiy.
Towards the end of the night it appeared like Vanush Mnatcakanian could be the only player to challenge Andreev for the the chip lead but Andreev held firm to take 145 big blinds into Day 2.
Stay tuned to PokerNews.cim for what promises to be an exciting conclusion to the PokerStars Festival Sochi.