Arjan van Bavel Unleashes His Wrath on the Field of Day 1e of the THMC Main Event
Day 1e of the The Hendon Mob Championship (THMC) Liechtenstein CHF 300 ($332) Main Event has reached its conclusion. The field shrunk from its original 107 entries to the 23 players who still stood tall at the end of the day. They will join the 63 players who already have conquered a seat in Day 2 on June 4th at 4 p.m. local time.
Tallest of them all, almost resembling the mountains surrounding Grand Casino Liechtenstein, was the Dutchman Arjan van Bavel. He managed to end up with not double, but triple the stack of his nearest rival. Bagging a gargantuan stack of 915,000 chips, Van Bavel will have over 150 big blinds at his disposal at the start of Day 2. The player that goes by "Esage" needed to console themself with a second place, taking a stack of 307,000 into Day 2. Meanwhile, Velimir Lozic, also from Switzerland, completes the podium and is the final player of Day 1e to end up with more than 300,000 chips, 301,000 to be exact.
Day 1c Top Ten Chip Count
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Day 2 Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arjan van Bavel | Netherlands | 915,000 | 153 |
| 2 | "Esage" | Switzerland | 307,000 | 51 |
| 3 | Velimir Lozic | Switzerland | 301,000 | 50 |
| 4 | Tobias Heinsdorf | Germany | 281,000 | 47 |
| 5 | "83-83" | Switzerland | 257,000 | 43 |
| 6 | Bunjamin Raimi | 256,000 | 43 | |
| 7 | Alessandro Morales | Italy | 234,000 | 39 |
| 8 | Aleksandar Pesic | Serbia | 220,000 | 37 |
| 9 | Roger Heim | Switzerland | 212,000 | 35 |
| 10 | Patrick Tober | Austria | 209,000 | 35 |
Van Bavel started his meteoric rise by busting two-time bracelet winner Emil Bise in a bizarre hand in Level 8. From there on out, Van Bavel never looked back, eliminated several players, and even ended the day by shipping a pot of over 550,000 in the final minutes of Day 1e.
Van Bavel stands out in the crowd in Liechtenstein not only because of his towers of chips but also because he has traveled relatively far to the European microstate. Amongst mostly nationals of the neighboring Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Italy, few foreigners can be found. However, he is not solely alone in the Alps, as the Serbian Aleksandar Pesic (220,000) and Bulgarian Martin Ganchev (69,000) also battled their way through Day 1e, albeit ending up with significantly shorter stacks.
At the time of writing, Day 1f is still ongoing and is boasting 98 entries in Level 7. Late registration is still open in that flight and PokerNews will provide an update on the final numbers before the start of the live report of Day 2 on June 4th. The turbo Day 1g is also still scheduled to start four hours before Day 2 kicks off, and will also be glossed over at that time. The CHF 200,000 guaranteed prize pool has not yet been hit, so some more players might travel to the Alps last minute in search of value.
As stated, PokerNews will be back on June 4th at 4 p.m. local time with the live report of Day 2 of the THMC Main Event here in Liechtenstein. At that time, the yet uncertain prize pool and payouts will also be confirmed. The plan is to play down to the final table during that day, so be sure to come back to this page at that time to not miss any of the exciting bubble-bursting action that is sure to abound.