Ryan Riess Seeking to Continue Strong Year After Bagging Big
The World Series of Poker Europe Main Event got under way after a couple of weeks of preliminary events, and Day 1a pulled in a strong turnout that saw a number of top players advance with big stacks.
One player to keep an eye on going forward is undoubtedly Ryan Riess.
The 2013 WSOP Main Event champ followed up his big win with a lackluster 2014 and then a couple of slightly stronger years, and he's back to "Riess the Beast" status here in 2017. Riess has pocketed over $1.4 million in prize money already this year, highlighted by a WPT title in Florida and a third-place finish in the $10,000 Heads-Up Championship at this summer's WSOP.
Riess arrived in Rozvadov for WSOP Europe and made an immediate impact, stepping up to the plate for the €25,000 High Roller. Unfazed by the elite competition, Riess navigated to a fourth-place finish just two nights ago for €230,071.
In the Main Event, Riess continued his hot streak by bagging 150,400 from his 50,000 starting stack. It's far too early to look this far ahead, but Riess has a chance to join Phil Hellmuth as the only players to win both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOP Europe Main Event.
Overall registration numbers were strong with about 230 firing the €10,000. With most previous WSOPE Main Events sitting between 300 and 400 entries, this has the makings for one of the biggest fields in the history of the event, although reentries are allowed this time around.
Of those who did make it through to Monday's Day 2, Markus Durnegger holds the unofficial chip lead with 246,200. Former November Niner Pierre Neuville (239,000), Piotr Franczak (169,800), Markus Ross (157,400) and Sam Grafton (147,000) also bagged big.
Defending champ Kevin MacPhee also found a bag. MacPhee got a big stack early on when he got in a big confrontation with John Duthie, who was playing as aggressively as anyone in the room. MacPhee flopped a set of tens and got in a raise on the flop against Duthie's top pair, and the rest of the money went in on the turn when MacPhee added a flush draw, which he missed.
Others making it through included Davidi Kitai, David Peters, Niall Farrell, Adrian Mateos and Sergio Aido.
Some who fell were Kristen Bicknell, Dario Sammartino and Maria Ho.
Those players and more will have another shot with Sunday's 1b, which features another noon start and more coverage here on PokerNews/