Joep van den Bijgaart Leads in Amsterdam; Zinno Continues to Chase WPT History
The second day of the World Poker Tour Amsterdam €3,300 Main Event was filled with great poker action and a very dominant performance by Dutchman Joep van den Bijgaart, who came out on top with 438,000 in chips. A ton of top pros are still remaining as well, including three-time WPT champion and the reigning WPT Player of the Year, Anthony Zinno.
Zinno played a quiet day, but towards the end he found a double up with ace-jack versus eights followed by another big pot with ace-king suited against jack-eight. Zinno closed out the day with 116,000 in chips and remains in contention to become the first-ever four-time WPT champion.
WPT Amsterdam €6,000 High Roller champion Jason Wheeler also came to play, and he kept winning pots left and right to close out with 278,000 in chips. The day started with no less than 17 more entries, and that made for a total of 341 entries into this event, creating a first-place prize of €215,000 including a WPT World Championship ticket.
At the end of Day 2, there were 65 players remaining and tomorrow, on Day 3, the top 45 will get paid.
Among the early eliminations on Day 2 were Seth Berger, Luca Moschitta, Pascal Vos, and Clyde Tjauw Foe. Dominik Nitsche got off to a hot start, but he fizzled out in one of the later levels. Fatima Moreira de Melo also started out strong by calling a big bluff with an underpair, but in the later stages of the day she couldn't get anything going. Ultimately. Moreira de Melo busted holding king-ten against Tobias Peters' ace-queen.
Master Classics of Poker Main Event winner and two-time European Poker Tour finalist David Boyaciyan did not have a good day, either, as he lost with nines all in for his tournament life against Cor Janssen's jacks. EPT champions Kent Lundmark and Pieter de Korver did make it through, though, and the same thing could be said for Ludovic Geilich, Jack Salter, and Bryn Kenney.
Samantha Abernathy, one of the most active players on Day 1a, was unfortunate on Day 2. Abernathy ran a set of sixes into a flush, and she busted to Ad Schaap in a big pot. Dutch poker legend Rob Hollink also got knocked out, as were Gijs Verheijen and Jolmer Meelis.
But now for some more good news.
Tournament chip leader Van den Bijgaart was dominant throughout the day, and towards the end he won a big pot, which ended in the Dutchman shoving on Andrew Chen. Chen folded and was left behind with 70,000 at that point while Van den Bijgaart catapulted his stack up to 440,000.
Sorel Mizzi had another excellent day, as his stack trended up and up and up. Mizzi ultimately closed out with 254,000 in chips and he's one of the strongest contenders heading into the third day. Sylvain Loosli, fourth-place finisher in the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event, survived with 120,000 in chips, while last year's runner-up, Felix Stephensen, bagged up 229,500 chips.
EPT Grand Final winner Steve O'Dwyer played one huge pot with pocket kings against Danny van Zijp that put him in contention, and the Irish American returns tomorrow with 221,500 in chips.
Play will resume on Thursday at 2 p.m. local time, and the plan is to play another five levels of 90 minutes apiece. The money will be reached, but we're still quite a ways away from reaching the final table. Stay tuned to PokerNews.com, as we will continue to bring you all the live updates throughout this event.