Thursday, October 15, 2015 5:50 PM Local Time
Doug Lee Bags Up Massive Lead After Day 1 of Pot Limit Omaha Event #7
The first of three tournament days for the World Series of Poker Europe €500+50 Pot Limit Omaha Event #7 saw 503 players enter the competition. A single re-entry was available and 140 of the participants fired a second bullet to create an overall prize pool of €243,955 with 56 spots being paid. The money was reached within the 14 levels of 30 minutes each and Doug Lee bagged up an enormous stack of 593,000 chips, while Tayfun Öztoygan (221,500) and Grzegorz Grochulski (185,000) complete the overnight podium.
It all started fast and furious with many of the pros and amateurs alike taking a shot or two. Mike Leah, Dominik Nitsche, Ismael Bojang, Anthony Zinno, Brian Rast, Scott Davies, Jeff Lisandro, Greg Merson, Jonathan Duhamel, Phil Hellmuth, Mixed Event #5 champion Alex Komaromi, Roger Hairabedian, Jan-Peter Jachtmann, and Shaun Deen all fell way before the money.
The bubble burst at the start of Level 12 and Michael Vater was crowned bubble boy under very unfortunate circumstances. Vater got his last few big blinds in with and Marius Fritz called with and spiked the two-outer on the river of a board. Soon after, the floodgates opened with dozens of players hitting the rail. Among them were for example Mihails Morozovs, Kenneth Aldrige, Niall Farrell, 2014 PLO European champion Yusuf Kurt, Davidi Kitai, Bart Lybaert, and Ole Schemion.
Noah Bronstein and Roland Israelashvili were just two big names that fell to the incredible run of 2015 Eureka Hamburg champion Tom Holke, but the latter then handed all his chips over to Lee in three big pots. Dzmitry Urbanovich was eliminated just before the clock was stopped when his was cracked by Damian Pawlak's in a preflop all in, Pawlak got there on the board and Urbanovich just missed out on bagging up chips.
All remaining 25 players have €1,460 locked up for their efforts, the next payout step of €1,780 is just one elimination away though. The winner takes home €54,725 as well as the coveted gold bracelet. Big stacks and notables include the two former WSOP bracelet winners Barny Boatman (157,000) and John Gale (134,500), Shannon Shorr (145,000), Claus Carlsen (43,500) and Marc MacDonnell (26,500). Action resumes tomorrow at 1 p.m. local time at Level 15 with blinds at 1,500/3,000 and will continue until the final table of the last eight is determined.