Massive Chip Lead for Francesco Di Domenico After Day 2 of the WSOP-C Sanremo Main Event

Maxime Taldir

Level 23 : Blinds 20,000/40,000, 40,000 ante

Out of a total of 1,050 entrants of the 2024 WSOP-C Sanremo Main Event, only 16 were supposed to remain at the end of Day 2. However, after a very long day, it was decided to end with 24 players, and this goal was reached late in the night.

Tomorrow, these 24 players will compete for the first-place prize of €133,090 and a WSOP-C ring. Among them, Francesco Di Domenico has already taken a big step in this direction, thanks to a massive pot won against Oleksandr Shevchenko. He scooped another large pot in the final moments of the day to finish as the chip leader with 9,180,000, more than two times more than Raffaele Caldarelli's stack of 3,890,000.

WSOP-C Sanremo Main Event Day 2 Top 10

Rank	Player	Country	Chip count	Big blinds
1	Francesco Di Domenico	Italy	9,150,000	229
2	Raffaele Caldarelli	Italy	3,890,000	97
3	Jean-Marc Chiba	France	3,650,000	91
4	Danilo Colomba	Italy	3,260,000	82
5	Pablo De Heredia	Spain	3,160,000	79
6	Xavier Zuczkowski	Italy	2,850,000	71
7	Christian Alilovic	France	2,415,000	60
8	Mario Perati	Italy	2,240,000	56
9	Isabel Baltazar	France	2,080,000	52
10	Ivan Kuziv	Ukraine	2,050,000	51

A total of 262 players returned to Casinò Sanremo at 1 p.m. for Day 2 of the Main Event, all aiming to secure one of the 159 spots in the money. After half of the field was eliminated, the hand-for-hand procedure began. A few players managed to double up, including Maxwell Young, who held aces against kings. However, while others were doubling up, Juliane Papazian found herself down to just 2,000 chips. She was forced all-in from the big blind, but luck wasn’t on her side, and she was eliminated on the bubble.

With the minimum cash prize of €2,010 secured, players like Jérémy Palvini (115th), Olivier Brun (149th), Erich Tedeschi (118th - €2,110), Alexandre Le Vaillant (105th - €2,110), and Claudio Di Giacomo (91st - €2,220) were soon eliminated, bringing the field down to under 100 players before the dinner break. On the other hand, Jean-Marc Chiba's stack didn't stop growing, cracking aces early during the day then going to dinner with more than two millions chips.

After dinner, Jose Carlos “Yoshi” Abreu suffered a terrible bad beat as his queens were cracked by Christian Alilovic’s quads. Eliminated on this hand in 72nd place for €2,340, he was soon followed to the payout desk by Nicolas Antouard (67th - €2,500) and Moundir Zoughari (58th - €2,765), while Chiba held a strong chip lead thanks to another big pot.

However, the dynamic shifted when Oleksandr Shevchenko took the lead after hitting a straight to eliminate Luigi Andrea Shehadeh (33rd - €4,155). Shortly after this hand, the table broke, and Shevchenko found himself seated across from another big stack, Francesco Di Domenico. The two clashed in a major hand, with Di Domenico catching Shevchenko bluffing in a 6,400,000-chip pot. In the end, it took only 30 minutes for Shevchenko to go from chip leader to being eliminated in 29th place for €4,925.

As the day started to feel very long for the remaining players, Marco Conti and Young were eliminated almost simultaneously, allowing their opponents to qualify for Day 3. Hervé Gouzil could have been eliminated on the last hand as well, but he successfully folded jacks preflop to avoid Didier Mambour’s aces. He’ll be back tomorrow with 1,430,000, while Mambour has 1,800,000. At the same table, two times WSOP-C Main Event finalist Isabel Baltazar (2,080,000), Pierre Basile (1,285,000), and Andrea Dal Bo (1,280,000) also made their way to Day 3.

The final day of the WSOP-C Sanremo Main Event resumes tomorrow, Monday, November 11, at 1 p.m. local time, with 22 minutes left in Level 23, featuring blinds of 20,000/40,000 and a big blind ante of 40,000. All remaining players have secured a prize of €4,925 so far. The final table will be to follow on stream on Texapoker's Twitch and YouTube channels.